How to Get Clients

STEVE CHANDLER
HOW
TO GET
CLIENTS
How to
Get Clients
Steve Chandler
www.clubfearless.net
How to Get Clients. Copyright © 2009 by Steve Chandler. All
rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be reproduced or
copied in any form without permission from the publisher,
Maurice Bassett: ReinventingYourself@gmail.com
ISBN 1-60025-029-7
ISBN (13 digit) 978-1-60025-029-3
Published by Maurice Bassett
http://www.ReinventingYourself.com
Steve Chandler
http://www.SteveChandler.com
http://www.ClubFearless.net
Cover art by SeeSaw Designs
If you've ever dreamed of a fearless life, join the club:
Joyfully conceived and joyfully delivered, Steve Chandler's Club
Fearless gives you the support, motivation and tools to transform your
life.
Club membership includes two monthly mailings, each
containing an audio program on CD that is exclusive to club
members. Members may also participate in a monthly teleseminar
and pose their most urgent questions to Steve Chandler. Regular
emails from Steve keep inspiration and motivation high throughout a
member's whole week. Plus many more gifts and benefits. More
details are available on the club website at wwwClubFearless.net.
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Contents
1. First, get really curious
6
2. Practice being unreasonable
7
3. Honor your computer files!
8
4. Now practice saying your fee
9
5. You succeed faster when you slow down
10
6. How do I make my client list grow?
11
7. Practice thinking BIG all day long
16
8. Write down the people you want to serve
18
9. Make your birthday list
21
10. Challenge your clients
23
11. Limit yourself to increase your value
25
12. Learn to work backwards
27
13. Stay away from the galaxy of heartbreak
30
14. What the criminal defense law firm learned
33
15. Why do people KEEP ON referring?
36
16. People on their deathbeds
41
17. People want to know what happened
45
18. Systems are better than beliefs
47
19. Find your certainty and stay there!
48
4
20. The most damaging feeling to have
54
21. Too disorganized to get clients?
55
22. Never let them start
58
23. How many dogs and ponies are needed?
60
24. Are you willing to ask for it?
62
25. Where does YES live?
64
26. NO is actually heaven on earth!
68
27. Some know about this secret
70
28. A practice that eventually solves the problem
73
29. This is a very popular story
77
30. It’s not even true
78
31. Yeah, but what about foreclosure?
80
32. The best questions I get about getting and keeping clients
87
33. How to hit home runs
124
Bonus chapters from: 50 Ways to Create Great Relationships
131
Bonus chapters from: Fearless: Creating the Courage to
Change the Things You Can
188
About Steve Chandler
212
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1) First, get really curious
Before talking to a prospective client, jot down
20 questions you want to ask that person. Visit their
website and let your curiosity grow to a fever pitch.
Read their blogs. Go deep.
Because there is no expression of LOVE and
services that connects more deeply and intensely than
curiosity.
Curiosity is caring in action…it is proof of your
commitment to serve, help and transform. The more
authentic curiosity you demonstrate the faster your
practice will grow.
Every sale takes place in the other person’s world,
not your own. That’s where the decision is made to hire
you and pay the strong fee. Not in your world, but theirs.
The only way to really get into their world is to ask
continuous genuinely curious questions and follow up
questions. Don’t talk about yourself until invited to.
And even then, tell a short success story, make a
jaw-dropping promise to the prospect related to the
story, and finish with another question to them so you
get back quickly into their world. You don’t want to
remain in your world. Big mistake.
And remember, before you call, have 20 questions.
It’s twenty, not two. Most people only have two.
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2) Practice being unreasonable
Bold requests and asking for “unreasonably” big
financial commitments from people never harm your
business, and often generate surprising leaps forward.
If people say no, nothing is lost.
If you could hold the courage for that each day, that
practice of making big requests and proposals, it would
move billings forward so fast you could barely track it.
We lapse, though, into the default mode of the
bio-computer, which has all communication monitored
and filtered through WHAT WOULD PEOPLE THINK
OF ME?
Three ways to double your income today: 1) double
your client list, or 2) double the scope of work being
done for each client, or 3) double your fees. They all
work. You can do the math on all three and see that any
one of those you chose would work.
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3) Honor your computer files!
Honor your computer and the clients it holds for you
that you don't realize are there.
Set an hour or two aside to surf lazily through emails
you have received over the past six months. Put some
Hawaiian music on. These are clients you are looking
at. Send each one of them a simple email that says,
“How can I serve or assist you right now? What's the
biggest problem you face?” (Or something like that that
you like even better than that.)
You will be surprised at your responses...and when
you get a response that is positive (and you'll get
many), answer that one with this: “Call me.” Then
when they call, don't “sell” them, but jump right into
their world and start solving their problem! Tell them
the truth about the source of the problem. After the
conversation, they will hire you.
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4) Now practice saying your fee
Now practice communicating the number that is your
fee. Most people, when they set a fee, never actually
say it. So when it comes time to speak it their voice
catches and they choke and their heart flutters and their
knees go weak.
Practice saying it. Have it be so normal and minimal
that it just comes out like you are saying your phone
number. You don't get a catch in your throat or feel
pressure on your chest when you give out your phone
number, because it's just information...it's just a number.
Have your minimum fee be that. And make sure you
talk to as many people as you can about it. Even people
who you don't think it matters to...just casually
mention, “It's a five thousand minimum fee to do a
project with me....”
There may be people, small people, minnows, who
will scatter and swim away when you say the fee, but
that's good because the people you want as clients and
repeat-business clients are NOT those people. When we
take on minnows, our net (our life, our practice) gets
cluttered and bogged down with small stuff...the small
stuff ends up taking just as much work for much less pay.
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5) You succeed faster when you slow
down
Part of the beauty of slowing down is that it gives you
time to research your client’s business. One way to get
all the clients you will ever want is to learn your
prospective client’s business through and through.
You can rapidly expand your contract with an
existing client if you almost know more about their
business than they do!
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6) How do I make my client list grow?
How do you make anything grow? You plant it, you
water it. You give it light. You cultivate it. You watch
over it. You weed around it. You give it more water.
And it grows. Inch by inch. Row by row.
But not for the past six coaches I have referred
clients to. Do you know why? They did none of the
above. None of it. They had too much to do to do any
of that nonsense. They had too much to do and too little
time. They were horror film flies buzzing and bouncing
against the window trying in vain to get into their own
futures every day...in vain! You know why it's in vain?
(Secret: the future doesn't really exist.)
People don't get referrals only because they don't
reward referrals. It's that simple. They don't cultivate
referrals. They don't water them. They don't even turn
the soil over.
I have a lot of people ask me for coaching these
days and I like to refer them to coaches I know. But the
coaches I know don't know how to treat referrals, so I
keep referring to different coaches hoping I'll find one,
just one who knows what to do.
So I sent (we are changing names of course)
Melissa a referral. She thanked me and signed the client
to a coaching contract. That was the last I heard. For me
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to know whether it was working out, whether my
referral was happy, what was happening at all I myself
had to ask. It never occurred to Melissa to keep me
informed. To let me know it was going well. To keep
me in the loop. Therefore, when I had another referral
to make I did not make it to Melissa. Not because I was
hurt that Melissa didn't keep me in the loop, but
because Melissa would never know how to teach her
clients how to get referrals. Also, because I would not
know what Melissa did with clients after I referred, so
why send people into a black hole?
This isn't just with coaching. I talked to a business
owner last month who said he got his best leads and
best business from dentists. They referred people to
him. I asked him what he does for the dentist when the
dentist refers. He said he sends a nice card.
Do you keep the dentist in the loop?
No. Not really.
Do you have the client referred get back to the dentist
and thank him personally?
Never tried that.
Do you call the dentist three months later to let him
know how you are taking care of his referral? (This is
called watering and cultivating a referral.)
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No. Just that one card. That's it.
You may be thinking right now, What's wrong with
the card? Everybody does it. Well that’s it! Because
everybody does it, it has no unique heart in it and
therefore no sincerity. It's what busy people do who
don't slow down and become present to all the
possibilities in their world.
If a referrer keeps learning from you how the referral
went, he will refer more and more people. Every client I
have taught this to has THRIVED on referrals! Every
one, every time.
So this business started going back through their list
of all the dentists who had referred people. They gave
them written and verbal reports on how things had
gone, and you know what? They started getting a wave
of new referrals.
People LIKE TO KNOW IF THEY ARE MAKING
A DIFFERENCE IN LIFE.
If they referred someone to you, they want to know
all about what happened. They love knowing they made
a positive difference in someone's life.
A thank-you card alone is unconscious and robotic.
It's self-focused. (It's about you. It's not about the
person being served by all this. It's about you being
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grateful for money, so it's basically off-putting when
you really think about it.) It's phony. It comes from a
frantic mind trying always to get into its own future and
never slowing down to be present to this precious
moment.
In business you get what you reward.
But only always.
How do you reward referrals? With genuine
informative feedback...real news from real people being
real with each other.
So I referred another client to another coach I know.
I heard nothing back. I heard, “Thank you” at the
moment of the referral but nothing more. Even if the
referral didn't work out, I would want to know that.
But he was too busy. It's a busy-ness problem. Most
people are too busy to succeed.
That coach has no vision about how he might slow
down, treat people in considerate ways, and grow his
business like a beautiful garden. He is racing and
pumping and pressing, trying to force himself through
the glass into a better, wealthier future. It's the ultimate
time management mistake...having more than one thing
to do.
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Just do one thing well. Just do one thing artistically,
completely, lovingly and thoroughly. See what happens
to your career.
And when you're trapped in it, notice how sick a
millions-of-things-to-do mind really is. Notice how
ungrateful that mind is. And notice how broke that
person is compared to how wealthy he could be. It's all
related.
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7) Practice thinking BIG all day long
Think big. Don’t be the shy girl at the dance. Your
client won’t think big for you. It’s your job to think big.
Whenever you get a prospect on your radar screen,
especially one who you know already wants to work
with you, don’t just offer them the same old stuff. Don’t
just offer them the tried and true, the old reliable. How
would you explode your earnings that way? By being a
plow horse trudging along every day offering the same
old stuff?
Get creative and think big. Your existing clients will
make you rich if you think of even BIGGER ways to
serve them.
You can’t lose, ever, by proposing something big.
How many NOs did you get this week? That’s the real
measure of whether you are stretching yourself and
stretching your clients. Before the end of each day ask
yourself, did I get my NO today? No? I didn’t?
COWARD! Wimp. Lazy old sloth doing same ole same
ole with my life.
Who’s going to reach for the stars if I don’t?
Think big. Your star will ascend IN DIRECT
PROPORTION TO HOW MANY NOs you get every
week. Collect them! Be proud of them. If you are
getting all yeses you are really letting yourself down.
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You are playing WAY too safe with your life. And
what for?!? Why base your life on avoiding fear and
feeling safe? Why do that when you could have been
GREAT?????? This I want to know. And when you
finish reading this, go GET A NO!
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8) Write down the people you want to
serve
People realize way too late that they can provide
service to virtually anyone they want.
Just write down the people you want to serve. Then,
start with just one on your list, the next one. The one in
front of you right now. Have the conversation that
moves that person into your camp. It’s the simplest
thing in the world, but the last thing people really
systematically do.
Instead they chase all over doing talks, webinars,
seminars, telenars, rolodexing, marketing, social
networking, glad-handing, list-building, facebooking,
Twittering and all the half-hearted half measures that
attempt to get people to give us respect when all they
really want is our good service!
To serve and love people you do not need their prior
approval; you do not need to please them and win them
over…. you do not need to please anyone; that is an
absolutely false and toxic hopeless dead-end nearsuicidal (business-wise) pursuit…just love and serve….
Let prospects know what working with you would
be like by having your intake conversations be long,
extremely real and truthful…because you are selling
yourself, you don’t want to mince words or do the
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dance of money-fear wherein you are flattering them
and acting in ways that disgust your own heart.
Instead, be willing to listen deeply and be the first
person in their lives to tell them the truth. Be real and
tell the truth about how you really see their problems.
Don’t hold back.
And this is done, remember, by simply talking to
one person. The next person. The one thing in front of
you right now. The only thing. It’s the simplest time
management system in the world. Just do one thing.
Because, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Do the thing,
and you shall have the power.”
Byron Katie is the best resource I know for learning
to slow down and love the fearless life. Katie once said,
“When we do the thing in front of us, everything that
we are to do, everything that needs to be done is always
done. Also, when we are doing the thing in front of us,
doing the thing we know to do in the moment, we are
one-minded, mind is not at war, split, in competition
with itself, and that is where love lives.”
Most of the time our minds are in competition with
themselves, always thinking of all the other things we
should be doing while only half-doing the unfinished
thing we think we’re doing.
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Katie continues, “Also, when we just do the thing in
front of us, even if it is just walking, closing the car
door, picking up the socks, we are always creating a
better world and life is loved without effort. No
decision, no fear. That is how it works. When people
say, ‘I want,’ and I watch them live differently than it
takes to get what they want, I see clearly that they don’t
want it, and that their mind is split, and when they
believe that they want it, they are believing the
opposing thoughts that are running. You will always
suffer when your mind wants two opposing things at
once.”
So just do the thing. When you do the thing. Just that
one thing in front of you at the moment. That’s when
you have the power.
It may be time now to rise up. Now that there’s just
one thing to do.
And there is so much power in being present to The
Next Thing (the only thing) on your list, and to do that
thing with all your heart and soul. Put your heart into
your task, and amazing benefits, almost like meteor
showers, gather in your future for you…because the
future is created ONLY in this present moment, never
in the future itself.
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9) Make your birthday list
Ever get an email that says, “What do you want for
your birthday?”
I know smart people who keep just such a list handy
so they have specific answers for that question.
Now you’re going to do it with future clients. Write
down five names of people or groups you would really
like to work with. Your dream list. Put the list
somewhere where you'll see it every day. At some point
go for a walk with your list and let your mind ponder
the fab five.
Who do you know who knows them? How would
you help them? What can you learn about them?
By having this list be a conscious thing in your
world you will activate the reticular activating system
of the brain...it's that part of the brain that finds in the
world exactly what you have in your mind. By being
consciously aware of those five names you increase the
likelihood that your mind will hear the right connection
inside some unrelated conversation at a non-business
gathering that will lead you to the business.
Even if this practice looks silly or new age or like it
came from The Secret, it does also work. Which is why
I recommend it. I've used it with myself and clients for
years and years and even the most skeptical ones are
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amazed by it. Write things down. They become real
when they are written down.
The reticular activating system of the brain is this:
whatever you picture and ponder repeatedly (your list
of five) starts showing up in the outer world……
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10) Challenge your clients
Yes, challenge your clients. Especially those who are
“trying to decide” whether to work with you.
Put the question to them. Let them know that that
very “trying to decide” thing that they do is what your
work is designed to cure, so the irony is that the very
thing your work will help grow in them (some real
fearless decisiveness) is exactly what prevents them
from getting the work. Poor them! All of life will go
that way for them. They will waste their lives trying to
decide what to do about things.
Ask them to step up and play big. Ask them whether
they are really ready to work with you…whether they
are committed enough to USE you to succeed
with…because if they are not ready for their
transformation, it won’t happen.
Don’t let their decision be a referendum on you, and
what you offer. Have their decision to work with you be
based on them. Their willingness to commit right now.
And whether they themselves have the courage to
change. The willingness to be better is a powerful thing.
Acknowledge your prospect for that willingness. The
true desire to play bigger than they have played.
Because if they are not ready to change their situation,
you are not a good match for them.
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The more you ask of your clients, the more they will
want to work with you. It’s a paradox. The reason
Michael Phelps adored his coach is because that coach
asked more than any other coach. He asked Phelps to
do things in training that other coaches don’t dare to
ask….Phelps revealed in interviews that he swam miles
that other swimmers do not swim…..(because other
swimmers’ coaches are more concerned with keeping
their clients than they are with radical transformation of
the human in question).
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11) Limit yourself to increase your
value
Without courage, life stalls. Nothing moves. But open
the mind, and things change. Open the mind and
courage comes in, and then flows back out as action!
Movement. We are happy when we are moving.
One reason my clients always pay up front is that I
don’t want to waste one precious moment collecting
from them later. That’s a moment I could have used to
coach them and make their lives better.
My mentor for the past fourteen years, Steve
Hardison, has taught me over and over that limitation
creates value. My time is limited, as is my availability.
Some people worry that when they state their
limitations it’s just trying to create the “perception” of
scarcity, as a manipulated sense of limitation….but,
actually no…it’s the REALITY of it I want people to
get….
For example, let’s say I have blocked off two days to
read and swim and reflect. And now a potential client
calls and asks if I am available on one of those days; he
might want me to deliver a keynote at a breakfast
meeting for top leaders…but I will simply tell them I
am not available. Because I already have an
appointment that day (with myself…with my solitude,
25
with my inner peace and outer silence. An unbreakable
agreement.)
I say to my client, “But please keep me in mind if
our calendars allow for a future engagement.” And he
does. He always does.
I was not creating a “perception” of limitation….I
was NOT available to him because I had already made
myself available to myself on those days.
Your clients will end up paying you according to
whether and how much you value your own time.
You are the person who gets to say when your dance
card is nearly full and when there are only limited
openings. The trick is to keep simplifying your life and
your professional practice….the more simple and
focused your life is the more wealth will be
created….but again, as I said up front, without the
courage of an open mind, all of this stalls.
A life simplified in this way allows for more
slowing down and thinking big…you (and all of us)
will create big projects out of thin air (thin air is the
birthplace of big action plans and proposals and
brilliant ideas) when you slow things down.
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12) Learn to work backwards
Let’s start—not at the beginning—but at the end. Let’s
start with the final picture. Now you have a client and
that client has been referred to you by someone else.
We’re going to talk about this process called referrals;
because more than any other process, cultivating
referrals is the most powerful, reliable way to build
your client base.
To build any business.
To build anything.
The referral process is something you really want to
slow down and pay attention to; because referrals are a
beautiful way to build your list. Most people waste
their time trying to get clients from unknown entities,
so they spend their time going outside their inner circle
of friends and acquaintances and associates—people
who know and trust their work. They go outside of that
circle and try to communicate with people who have
never heard of them. They cold call, they market, and
then they sell.
So, if you picture on your wall (let’s say you have a
white board) and you have drawn a tiny circle in the
middle, and that’s you—right there—that’s you and
your known professional expertise—right there in the
middle of the universe.
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Now draw a circle around you—a small circle—but
it’s just outside you—those are people who have
already worked with you. Those are people who know
and trust your work and people who are familiar with
what you do.
Those are the people you want to be talking to and
communicating with all day long.
Now as you keep drawing circles around and around
and around, you get further away from yourself. Soon
you’ve left yourself behind altogether! And that’s
where most people go. Most people go way out to the
eleventh circle and beyond to try to get new clients.
Like in Star Trek, they think they need to boldly go
where no man has gone before.
So they go way beyond their circle of influence and
circle of certainty; and they go out into the great
unknown and they try to sell themselves to people who
have never heard of them. They get on the phone, and
they cold call, or they do some kind of email blitz, or a
spam, or an internet hoax of some kind that draws
people in to sign up for something; and they go on and
on, and all this activity, and all this anxiety, and all this
energy dumped into marketing themselves, and
branding themselves, and linking up to unknown
people.
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All of this is largely a waste of time. I call it a waste
of time because over the last fifteen years, working with
people who have their own businesses or their own
coaching practices or their own consulting, they really
don’t get clients that way.
I mean they try. They spend half their day doing it,
and they keep finding new gurus to show them how to
do it further and to enhance their Internet site and to do
all these things and to step up the blogging; but it really
doesn’t bring clients in. And the reason it doesn’t bring
clients in is because it’s not intimate. There’s no real
connection in the communication.
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13) Stay away from the galaxy of
heartbreak
The Star Trek outer space communication is always
about selling, and branding, and enticing, and trying to
get people to try you out, and trying to get people to put
their toe in the water, and trying to get people to kick
the tires; and those kinds of people are not committed
clients. They are not people who really want to change
their lives with your service. Those are people who are
checking you out.
And it’s so heart-breaking.
It’s heart-breaking because you spend all day
working with these people who tentatively may want to
check you out, and then you end up trying to figure out
what your real value is, so you lower your price, and
you go all the way back to childhood, and your money
issues, and life becomes a nightmare.
Business becomes a nightmare! And it’s all because
you won’t focus on referrals as the primary source for
building your practice. You focus instead on more
arms-length things. From a distance. God is watching
us. Lose our businesses.
Arms-length marketing will always keep prospects
at a distance—out of fear. People don’t know it’s out
of fear—the fear may be totally subconscious—but they
30
keep their prospects at a distance and they sort of call to
them across a canyon. And when they finally do get
someone on the phone, they hint-hint-hint at what they
are good at, instead of making an intimate,
transformative connection.
If you were going to talk to your brother, and your
brother was interested in having one of his friends use
your service, there would be no question about how to
talk about it. You’d talk about it with certainty, you’d
be excited to share your effectiveness, and you’d tell
some fun case histories, and you’d urge that person to
come see you and it would be over.
Well, we can do this every day.
We can do this as a way of acquiring clients instead
of all these Hail Mary passes, all these schemes and
scams, and all this nervous marketing, and all the things
people do to get the word out.
It’s one of the nine lies (9 Lies That Are Holding
Your Business Back) that a person needs to get the word
out about what he’s doing. Not true. He needs to get
the client in, not the word out.
Because just getting the word out—what does that
do? Usually nothing. People print up all these
brochures and they send all these things out not
realizing that it’s folly to be marketing to the masses.
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You don’t want the faceless masses showing up at
your door! (Assuming they would.) But you’re
communicating as if you did!
You want one person—that’s all.
One client—that’s all you need; and then another
and then another. You don’t need masses and masses
of clients approaching you—yet.
If you look at most people’s communication, that’s
what it looks like. It looks like they are appealing to
the masses, and they are spamming something out
there, and they are throwing it against the wall to see if
it sticks, and it’s all fear-based. It’s completely fearbased as a way of building a client list. Fear of
intimacy.
So what really needs to happen now is the referral.
People who already know your work, being
missionaries and advocates for your work to other
people. That’s really how it works. That’s really how
it builds and grows.
So you have a client and that client has been referred
to you. So let’s look at what happens. What do you
do? Do you know what to do? Do you have a system?
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14) What the criminal defense law
firm learned
Let me share a little story about referrals that I’d like
you to apply to your own practice (your own business)
and see how it applies to you; because I promise you
there’s relevance in it for your business; and if you’ll
listen to the story, you’ll hear something unusual.
Years ago, when I lived in Tucson, I owned a public
relations and advertising agency and I was hired by a
criminal law firm to come in and help them get referrals
to the firm. Their primary source of good business was
referrals from other attorneys. So I agreed to take on
that account and to help them get referrals.
They imagined because I was a PR and ad firm that I
would design brochures and all kinds of
communications for the law firm to put it out there to
the legal communities that they were looking for
referrals, and we would build many steps of marketing
between us and the final client. That’s what all this
communication does, by the way, that you put out about
yourself—it actually creates distance between you and
your recipients.
It puts things between you and the end client; and
what we want to do to acquire clients is to bring the
client right in front of you with no distance, only
intimacy.
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So, I went in to the law firm and I sat down and the
various partners were seated around the big round
polished oak table and I said, “Let’s begin by finding
out what we do when people refer clients to you now.
So, what I’d like to do is go around the table and you
tell me when you get a client referred to you by another
attorney what process do you follow, what system do
you use, and what do you do to communicate back to
the attorney who has referred a client to you?”
And they all looked at me like I was kind of crazy
and one of the lawyers finally started and he said,
“Well, I don’t know. I try to thank them. Sometimes, I
might even send them some tickets to a game.”
“OK, great. Then what?”
“Well, that’s it, you know, that’s all I do.”
“Alright, who’s next?”
“Well, yeah, I…I…, I try to thank them… you
know…I try to call them, always, or thank them when
they refer. I don’t call them after that.”
“OK, who’s next?”
So what I found was, even though referrals were the
number one—the NUMBER ONE source of business
and prosperity for this law firm—they had no system,
34
no purposeful process in what they did with referring
clients.
So, we eventually put a process in place so that the
legal assistants and the people who were in the firm
who worked with the attorneys would have to
communicate back to the referring attorney seven times
over the next year with a sense of feedback, gratitude,
reporting back, letting them know how things went,
etc., etc. so that referring attorney was in the loop and
felt like the referral made a difference.
That’s the key to referrals. The difference the
referral made in the life of the client. Someone who
refers someone to you wants to make a difference in
life. They don’t need your gratitude. They would rather
know that referring that person has made some kind of
positive difference in the person’s life. That’s really
what they want to know! And therefore, that’s how they
will refer more people.
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15) Why do people KEEP ON
referring?
People refer more people to you only because they
received the fulfillment and the satisfaction of knowing
that the person they referred to you has actually
received good professional service, and you took good
care of them.
But that almost never happens.
Instead people focus on the wrong thing. They focus
on the money they themselves make from the referral!
So they thank someone with a fruit basket or sports
tickets as if to say, “Thanks for making me richer!”
And this leaves a bad, corrupt, creepy feeling in
everyone involved.
Now just let me tell you as a final footnote to that
attorney’s firm. Once they put this process into place
(even though at first they thought it was absurd—you
thank someone seven times for something?) referrals
went through the roof at that law firm. They got more
and more and more.
Let’s say you refer someone to me and then I coach
them. Now, if I want more referrals from you, even if I
just want to be a courteous, decent, kind human being
to you, I will not just thank you for the referral, or just
36
send you tickets to the game, or flowers, or Starbucks
coupons, or something like that. Because when I do
that, all I’m saying is, “Thanks for the money that came
my way. Thank you, I’m a greed-head like you so I
appreciate it!”
Let’s say you are a consultant, and I refer someone
to you (which I have done many times). I’ve said my
coaching card is full, I can’t coach anyone, but I
recommend you! So the prospective client says, “Fine,
I’ll check them out, give me their contact information,”
and I say great and so I let you know that someone is
coming to you and you say, “Oh, thank you Steve,
thank you so much for the referral.”
And so you thank me and then, what happens?
I hear nothing.
Months go by. I hear nothing. I don’t know whether
you ever got together with that client, I don’t know if
you’ve changed their life, I don’t know if they ever
called you. I don’t know if you are working with that
person. I have no idea. And because I have no idea
what happened—because I don’t even know if things
went well—I am frustrated. I’m clueless. I’m not aware
that I am making any kind of positive difference in life.
And
life,
when
difference-making!
it’s
37
good,
is
about
So what happens when I get another client to refer? I
will not refer to that person to you! Because I have no
confidence anymore. I have no idea whether that ever
works out when I do that. I don’t have any feeling that
when I refer someone to you, anything good happens. I
really don’t know what happens at all. So, I’m going to
refer to someone else.
I want to keep doing this until I find someone who
gives me positive feedback about the RESULT of the
referral. I want you to keep me in the loop. Even if it
takes you one minute on a voicemail. (I don’t mean that
you bother me, hound me, or stalk me. It only takes a
minute if once every three months you say, “By the
way, I just want to give you an update—the client you
referred—things are going great—their business has
done this and that, we’re doing great work together—
I’m flying out to inspect his new franchise that he just
bought and before I go on that trip I want to thank
you.”)
Another way to keep me in the loop is to have the
client himself thank me. So when the client thanks you
for your work, you say, “Hey, don’t thank me, thank
Steve! Steve is the one who sent you to me. If it
weren’t for Steve we wouldn’t be doing any of this.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right. I’m going to send Steve a
message and thank him for that.”
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So, why do people refer clients to you? They refer
because they know the referral has made a difference.
They feel the satisfaction that they’ve really helped
somebody by referring them to you. But if we do
nothing to allow that referring person to feel that
satisfaction, they will not refer again.
Let’s say it’s a year from now and my client has
decided to renew another program with me and sign me
up for another year of coaching. I will celebrate that by
thanking the person who originally brought us together.
In fact, I never want to imagine my client as just my
client. I want to always picture my client and the
person who referred my client. It’s two people sitting
over there because without the referring party I would
have no client. In my mind it’s always three people,
not two.
Now here’s the good part. Here’s the final scene
that occurs. And I mean this really, in my experience,
(case history after case history) this happens over and
over. When I teach people how to do this and when
people actually start doing this, more referrals occur!
Let’s say you are now doing this, and you’ve called
a referrer and said, “I know (it’s six months later) six
months ago you referred Mark to me and what
happened was we’ve had a great time together and now
I’m going to actually be coaching his vice president as
well or expanding and doing new business plans.
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We’re working on great stuff together and I just want to
thank you again and let you know what’s occurring.
This has really worked out well for Mark, and without
you, it never would have.”
Now, if you’ve got that person on the phone or are
with him in person he says to you, “I’ve got someone
else for you.”
You say, “You do?” and he says, “Yes, I have
someone else for you.”
Why is he referring someone else to you? Because
you kept him in the loop! You let him see that he made
a difference in someone’s life— that he’s really made a
difference by referring someone to you. You aren’t just
giving him your gratitude.
Because if you just have it be about you and him,
and leave the client out of the conversation, that will
always feel a little a greed-based. It’s a vaguely corrupt
kind of thing. When you only send a gift for sending
me a client—that feels corrupt.
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16) People on their deathbeds
When people are on their deathbeds, looking back over
their lives, what people are most interested in figuring
out is whether they have made a difference by being
here in this world.
“Have I made a difference? Is anything different
because I was here? Has my life on this planet made
the planet any different than it would have been if I
hadn’t been here? Have I made a difference? Have I
put children here that are now leading productive,
helpful lives to others (that’s one way to make a
difference). Have I created business results that have
helped people be employed? Did I serve people? What
have I done that has made a difference?”
People are always looking to see whether their lives
have made a difference, because that’s really the
meaning of life. That’s the meaning of meaning.
If something makes no difference, it has no
meaning! Something that makes no difference has no
meaning.
So, meaning, itself, is the difference
something makes. (I learned this from my wonderful
mentor Lyndon Duke, whom I’ve written about in
another book.)
Now if meaning itself (the meaning of life—the
meaning of my life) is the difference that something
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makes, then having made a difference is the deepest
craving I have. The same is true for other people. Like
that person who referred a client to me.
So when someone refers someone to me and I don’t
let them know whether it made any difference, I cut
them off from the deepest craving they have! And I
will not get more referrals.
I talk to so many of my clients who are coaches or
consultants or in some profession or other and they say,
“I don’t get many referrals. Oh, every once in a while,
I get some.”
And I always say, “Well, when you do get a referral,
what do you do? What’s your system? What’s your
process?”
And they look at me with a blank stare. Process?
System? What am I—a robot? I have to have a
system? I have to have a process? I’m a human being.
I am spontaneous. I come from love and authenticity.
In other words, I do nothing.
I do nothing! Or maybe I thank them, sometimes I
send tickets, sometimes I give them a Starbucks
coupon, and if it’s a really big client they have referred
I’ll sometimes send a fruit basket.
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That’s a payoff. That’s like The Godfather. That’s
like “Hey, Thank you for the money that’s coming to
me.” That’s the only message there. There’s no
message in that that says you’ve made a difference.
Even if the referral leads to nothing, I want to report
back that I had a great conversation with the person you
referred.
“We talked for 45 minutes. I think even in that talk I
was able to help them. I offered to be available to them
if they ever had any more questions and needed
anything from me. I sent them a book of mine I
thought would be helpful. It didn’t look like working
together was a good fit at the time. They didn’t have
the resources and it wasn’t a good fit. I offered to refer
them to someone else as well. Thank you so much for
this referral to me. If there’s anything else I can do, let
me know.”
So, even if it didn’t work out, give the most
thorough feedback that you possibly can so that the
person who referred is satisfied, is happy, is fulfilled,
and believes, “well, at least the person I referred was
well cared for and treated very nicely because even that
is a small difference.”
Feedback doesn’t have to be anything formal. It can
be, “I’m just driving away from a meeting I had with
Mark. We’ve been together six months now. You put
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us together and I want to thank you for that. Things are
happening that are really wonderful.”
Even if you aren’t allowed to disclose what happens
in your work with a client, you don’t have to. You can
simply say we are still working together and enjoying
the process. It’s been six months now, it’s been nine
months now, it’s been a year now and I want to thank
you. Great things are happening. Because it has the
person realize they are making a difference in life.
They are making a positive difference. The deepest
craving they have is to know they are making a
difference in their life.
When you do take care of referring parties this way,
they refer more people!
Why do people not do this? And, believe me, they
don’t. Even people who are supposed to be enlightened,
advanced and wise people. Like coaches! Life coaches
and business coaches of my acquaintance that I know
quite well, when I refer people to them— I hear nothing
back.
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17) People want to know what
happened
About two months ago, I referred someone to a well
known public speaker that I know who is a friend of
mine. I referred a major client that I had been speaking
to and I didn’t have the time to speak to any more and I
said, “Why don’t you speak to them,” and she was so
happy.
“Thank you so much, can I pay you a percent of
this?”
“No, no, just take good care of them, they are a good
client of mine.”
“Oh, I will, I will.”
Now, I’ve heard nothing back. I don’t know
whether she gave a speech to the client. I don’t know
what’s going on. I don’t know if she took good care of
my client, but I do know one thing: If some other client
calls me tomorrow and says “Do you know a good
public speaker?” I will not refer that person because I
have no sense of what happens when I do. I have no
idea. And because I have no idea, I don’t want to risk
it. It’s human nature. We don’t want to repeat
something unfulfilling.
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Look at your list of clients. Go down the list slowly,
one by one. Who sent them to you? Where did they
come from? Who sent them from their site to yours?
Whose blog did they read about you that sent them to
you, because you want to communicate with that
blogger! You want to keep people in the loop who
have referred people to you even in the most obscure,
abstract ways.
Your inner circle of people has all the business you
would ever need. Those names on your computer—that
are already in your computer—could be the source of
the greatest explosion of clients that you could ever
have. Not new people. Not new companies. Not new
names, but names you already have!
Because acquiring clients is not about believing in
yourself, it’s about creativity. Creative action.
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18) Systems are better than beliefs
Many people think they don’t have a good business
because they don’t believe in themselves! It’s not that
at all. It’s because of a lack of certainty that you have a
system that rewards the behavior you want repeated. In
business, you get what you reward.
Belief, if you break it down etymologically, means
fervent hope. Fervent hope. I have a fervent hope that
I am as good as my fees say I am.
You can feel how stressful that thought process is.
Why do I have to try to conjure up some kind of belief
in myself so my voice won’t shake when I state my fee?
Why don’t I speak from certainty instead? Why can’t I
tell prospects what I’m certain about, so it just flows
out of my voice as if I were describing facts instead of
making breathless claims and beliefs, and faith, and
hope, and wishing, and hoping, and faith, and belief,
and trust, and all those things that cause us to fall apart
with fear.
Why not just state the plain truth? What do I do for
a living? I coach people. How does it work? Let me
tell you a story about what happened when I coached so
and so. This is just fact. This is just what happened.
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19) Find your certainty and stay
there!
So, acquiring clients is about coming from certainty.
Coming from what you know for sure to be true and
speaking that, so they can hear the certainty in your
voice of what this service performs; and when they hear
that certainty they’ll want it for themselves.
When they hear a wavering, quavering voice, when
they hear you trying to sell them or impress them or
win them over, they will tell you, “Let me think about
it. I’ve got to talk to someone else. Let me get back to
you. I’ve got to check my finances. I’ve got to see if
I’ve got it in the budget. Let me talk to my wife.”
All those phrases that mean, “This is creepy, you
sound needy. I’m out of here.”
Now how do we reverse that and really acquire
clients quickly?
We begin with our inner circle. Remember the
circles we drew at the very beginning of our
conversation today. In the middle is a tiny circle.
That’s you. Now, draw a circle around that circle.
These are the people closest to you…those who know
your work the best. They’re the ones who can send you
the most clients, the most reliably. It’s just that we
never ask.
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We never ask for it. We never talk to them in those
terms because we let our own money fears infest and
infect the body so that we become flooded with this
cold water of fear, “Oh my gosh it’s about money—
they’ll think I’m asking them to give me more money if
I ask for a referral.”
So, let’s see how asking someone for a referral
might work. If I sit down with someone and I say,
“Now, we’ve had a great conversation. May I take
maybe three more minutes of your time for
something?”
That person says, “Yeah, sure, what?”
“As you know, I build my list of clients through
referral. I don’t do a lot of marketing. If you get on the
subway today you’re not going to see a poster with my
picture—1-800 Steve Chandler, DISCOUNT COACH!
You are not going to see that. I get my clients from
referrals. People who know what this work is and who
know who would benefit from it. People I trust to
know how to select candidates for the work. That’s
how the work grows. Now, that’s how it works. If you
(who really have an inside knowledge of what my work
is) have someone in your life who would benefit from
working with me, let me tell you what I would do. If
you send someone to me who you believe would truly
benefit from this work, I will give them an hour and a
half with me at no cost to them. That’s a gift from you.
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Because you have pre-selected this person, it is worth
my time. And certainly theirs. In that hour and a half
with me, we could solve the biggest problem in that
person’s life and they could be on their way, if
coaching’s not appropriate for them, and everything
would be great. I would be happy, because my list will
be filled anyway. All I’m saying is it’s filled through
referral and I’d be so honored if one of the referrals
came from you. So they would have that hour and a
half with me and they would know that was a gift from
you. And they could decide after that—after having
experienced the work whether they would like to
continue or not—freely based on their own decision.
One thing I will not do is sell them, push them, try to
get them to do it. Will not happen. I will not do that to
anyone you know or anyone else. That’s not how my
business was built. Now as I’ve been speaking, has
anyone occurred to you, has any name popped into your
mind who might benefit from the work that is similar to
the work you and I have done together?”
Now, every time I’ve had this conversation,
somebody names somebody. They say, “Yeah, yeah,
my brother-in-law.” Or, “Yes, yes, my former business
associate. He just started a new business. I saw him at
a picnic the other day, he’s really struggling. He asked
me about my coaching with you. He said, ‘How’s that
going?’ He’s very interested in it. He’s someone you
could really help.”
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And I say, “Thank you for that. What’s his name?
Would you please share with him what we talked about
and have him call me? I will not call him. I will not
bother him, pursue him, sell him, market to him,
network out to him, link to him, scam him, spam him,
or do anything like that. I will not tie him down like a
roped calf and put my brand on him; I will not do an
Internet hoax that loops him in. I will simply take his
call and set up time with him to honor you.”
So this kind of request of anyone in your inner circle
is going to lead to people lining up at your door. But it
only happens when you are not afraid to ask.
You could have anything if you were willing to ask
for it. We don’t ask because we make it about ourselves
instead of about the work and the service and the
product we provide.
People have told me that repetition is what really has
things sink in for people, so I’m not afraid to use
repetition—like a chorus coming up in a song. For a
song to really hook and for people to really love it and
to want to hear it again, the chorus has to keep coming
up and repeating.
So, to acquire clients, the process is this: Request,
propose, and invite over and over and over and no is as
good as yes.
It’s OK. The process is what’s
important—not the outcome. We get so fascinated with
51
the outcome, we forget the process and by not doing the
process we get so scared about the outcome, we forget
the process, and by not doing the process we don’t get
the clients.
But if I make it about some real help I can give
someone in someone else’s life—if that’s what the
conversation’s about, I will never be afraid to ask. If I
say, “I could really help someone you know,” that feels
good to me and that feels good to the person I am
talking to.
Here’s something that most people don’t quite
realize. People love putting people together. People
love being matchmakers. They love putting two other
people together and having it work out. They really
enjoy that. It’s really a thrill. It tickles them. Further,
it makes them really realize that they make a difference
in life. Yet we are afraid to give them an opportunity to
do that. We are afraid to allow them to feel that
wonderful feeling. Because we shrink down into the
most infantile version of ourselves and we fear what it
says about me to ask for a client.
I want to share the good work I do from a place of
certainty instead of trying to find a way to believe in
myself.
People waste so much time trying to figure out how
to develop confidence, and to learn how to believe in
52
themselves, and to trust their own product and to have
faith that the future will turn out fine, and not be so
scared.
Can you see the level they are playing at?
They’re playing at the level of the soap opera or
even worse, Jr. High School—“will Sally look at me in
math class today? Or will she look over there at Jason
and go to the prom with him?”
It’s a ridiculous way to do business. To make it all
emotional. Business is a logical process and it always
turns out prosperous if you follow it logically, unless
your product or service is just absolutely fraudulent or
out of date—if you’re trying to sell 8-tracks or
something like that it’s not going to work. But if you
have a good service and it has helped people, you’re
home free if you follow a logical process.
Business is a logical process run by emotional
beings and therefore it gets messed up.
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20) The most damaging feeling to
have
The most damaging emotion is fear. Fear stops us
asking for what we want. The fastest way to acquire
clients is to ask for clients. If I’m unwilling to do that,
it really means I’m unwilling to speak to others about
the powerful benefits and the powerful experience that
my service has had in the world and that unwillingness
will stop me every time.
That will have me try to find gurus and mentors, and
PR experts and marketing wizards and people who will
not make me talk to real people but will go out and find
clients for me. They’ll do Internet scams and things on
Amazon that will make it look like my book is a
bestseller when it’s not—they’ll do all these tricks and
every one of those marketing tricks is designed to take
you out of your inner circle and put you way out with
the faceless masses so it plays to your fear. It plays to
the fear you have of that conversation that would lead
to a client.
Clients come from conversations. We acquire
clients because of the conversations we’ve been in, and
if we systematically enter conversations throughout the
day, we will have more clients than we know what to
do with. No sale ever occurred outside of a
conversation.
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21) Too disorganized to get clients?
Sometimes I will go into a client's office and she'll say,
"Forgive me. I'm so disorganized. Look. Look at the
things lying around here. I apologize. No wonder I
don't get anything done."
And I'll say, "Well, do you have the file I sent you
on the training program we're going to do?"
"Oh, it's right here," and she'll pick it right off the
top of the desk.
"So you're disorganized?"
"Oh yeah, isn't it obvious? I've always been very
disorganized. It's a real problem. I need to take some
kind of class."
I say, "Well, it took you less than a second to access
that document, so this seeming chaos here (if you know
anything about chaos theory, chaos is the highest form
of order, it's just that we can't see the order in it
immediately), this seeming chaos in your office is
actually not, and your subconscious mind has ordered
this place to be the way you want it to be for quick
access to what you need."
Now there might be another person down the hall,
and if I go into her office and I say, “Where's the file I
sent you, let's pull that out and talk about it.” She
55
might be very neat—a “neatnik”—and she might go to
a file drawer and make her mind run through the
alphabetized list of where it would be in that file, and
finally after maybe three or four minutes come up with
the file and say, “Oh, finally, here it is. Yeah, I thought
I had it here, but I remember now I'm filing those over
here to keep them orderly so I know where to go to get
it. Here it is.”
Well, great, that took four minutes of wasted time
because you are organized. The woman down the hall
here got it in half a second—in a heartbeat. So who is
really more organized?
The next time you wake up and express yourself
through your personality (I'm disorganized!),
understand that you are walking through Jell-O. You
have this big Pillsbury doughboy of an additional layer
of gooey stuff you've built up called your personality
that's not necessary. And if you were to have a really
great day and become truly successful, out of what you
did today, it would be by throwing the Pillsbury
doughboy aside and taking action. ACTION!
With absolute freedom of action. Lightness and
spirit, joy, creativity, top of the ladder—and that comes
from no personal story at all. Am I organized, am I
fearful, am I lazy? What would it matter, given what I
am up to? Given the joy I'm feeling in serving you
right now. Given the commitment I have to be there in
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time. What would a personality matter right now? This
is pure action coming from me.
Charlie Chaplin once entered a Charlie Chaplin
lookalike contest in Monte Carlo and the judges
awarded him third place. So the truth is you can start
your life all over again today from nothing and surprise
yourself, because all these beliefs and all these old
worn out repetitive thoughts about who you are and
what you're not good at, keep surfacing and that
becomes personality.
People just believe they have a personality, and
that's never even questioned, but the problem is by
believing that myth I'm now limited to what that
personality could do about anything. I don't want to be
limited by that. I don't want to be limited by anything.
I'd like to be free.
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22) Never let them start
You never want prospects to decide whether to start
working with you. That's always a tough decision.
Why do I want to give someone a difficult decision
to make? Why start the relationship off that way?
Assuming it starts at all.
Instead of having your prospect trying to decide
whether to start, why not make it easier? Why not have
them decide whether to continue?
Isn't that an easier decision? Safer? More confident?
How is that done, though? If the prospect is new to
you, how would they be continuing?
In the early 1950s, the very best door-to-door
vacuum cleaner salesmen would throw dirt and dark oil
down on a housewife's carpet to strike fear and horror
in her heart. He would then say, “What if I had
something that could make that carpet even cleaner than
before I threw that down there?”
“I think you had better.”
And he would go out to his car and bring in his
prized product and demonstrate what it could do.
And she would buy it.
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Because she was now deciding to have that machine
continue to do its work.
You can do the same thing.
Whatever your service is, find a way to demonstrate
it. Allow your prospect to already get started with you.
For example, when I used to do sales team seminars
I would be glad to give a sales team my fifteen-minute
version. Once they were excited by that experience—
what I had demonstrated—they were happy to have me
continue.
Most people never demonstrate the value of their
work. They just announce it. Or claim it, or advertise it.
And then wonder about why they have very few clients.
How can anyone trust a claim? Or a promise?
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23) How many dogs and ponies are
needed?
When I owned an ad agency long ago, our firm would
often be a finalist in the running for a lucrative contract.
The prospective client would have three agencies do a
final live presentation to their leaders. You had
anywhere from 90 minutes to 3 hours to make your
pitch.
Most agencies did a dog and pony show. They
showed commercials, gave talks and did a multi-media
credentials pitch.
We never did that. We left our credentials in a
folder; a handout they could read later.
Instead we demonstrated what it would feel like to
have us be their agency. We had the whole presentation
be interactive, and we attacked the client's problems
and objectives as if we were already working for them.
Our goal was to give them the experience of
working with us. So their decision would be whether to
continue.
We won more clients than our competitors by a huge
margin.
I know life coaches who try to sell themselves to
prospects who call. They talk about fees, hours and
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results, and it's basically a sales call. These coaches
don't get very many clients this way and they often end
up hating their profession because of it.
On the other hand! There are coaches who
demonstrate. A prospect inquires and they ask the
prospect for an hour of their time, “to see if it's even a
fit for us.”
Then, during that hour they coach the prospect. The
prospect has an easy decision to make after that,
because they can base it on experience.
For a few years I made a fair portion of my living as
a consultant to authors. For a substantial fee, I would
take their rough book manuscript and help them convert
it into a highly readable, exciting book.
If someone began to inquire about my services I
would often have them send me any four pages of their
“book.” Just for fun, let's see what I can do for you.
Then I would re-write and edit those pages so that they
jumped off the page (in my opinion). The client was
able to then decide whether to continue working with
me. Not whether to start.
Never have anyone try to decide whether to start
being a client of yours. You won't get many clients that
way.
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24) Are you willing to ask for it?
One of the things that Byron Katie teaches is that you
would get whatever it is you wanted—if you were
willing to ask 1,000 people for it.
Well, people are not willing to do that! They might
ask one or two but then they stop asking. And why do
they stop asking?
Why do people stop asking for what they want even
though they didn’t get it yet?
Rejection!
But that’s a sad, misguided mistake, because there is
no rejection. No such thing. No one can reject you.
Rejection doesn’t exist.
All that happens is the thought of rejection—and
then the feeling of rejection.
Rejection is a feeling. It’s a sense and it’s a story.
It’s not really reality—nobody can be rejected, but they
can sure feel rejected.
The trick to getting clients, then, is to get yourself
into a fearless state in which you realize that you can’t
be rejected—you can only feel rejected.
And if you felt rejected, that would always be
because of some story you had about something
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somebody said. You would have to make up a story
that concludes, “that means I’ve been rejected. I’ve
been personally rejected, I don’t measure up, I’m not
worthy, I’m not good enough, they don’t like me.” And
all those terrible things that we place on top of some
simple information called “no thank you.”
When you look at rejection you can see that it starts
with a story. Then it descends into a feeling. Rejection
can only be a feeling that comes from my story in my
head—it’s not something that lives out there in the
world. It’s the result of an interpretation.
Prosperity occurs for me when I am willing to truly
see that, and get that, and choose not to interpret
anything anyone says in the business world as being
anything other than information—just information! Is
it yes or no?
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25) Where does YES live?
One of the things I like to teach people who sell their
services and seek clients is that “yes” lives in the land
of “no.” In fact, I’d like to write a children’s book some
day called The Land of NO. It would be a book for
adult children. And what’s so magical about The Land
of NO is that yes lives there!
Know that about the whole world. There are yeses
and there are nos and they live together. You cannot
separate them. They are integrated.
Therefore the only problem people have is their
prejudice. They don’t like no. They believe “I need to
get a yes.” And their superstition tells them that yes is
better than no.
I’m about to make a call to a prospect. She’s a
potential client! I really want to get a “yes”—I don’t
want to be rejected—I want people to approve of me—I
want people to affirm and validate me—I need a “yes”
today. I’ve been depressed lately. I don’t have as many
clients as I’d like right now, so I’m really not in the
mood for “no.” In fact, I don’t think I could take it!
So I don’t make the call.
I don’t ask for that investment from her because I’m
afraid I won’t get a “yes.”
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The feelings are so volatile and tipsy in my stomach
that I am carried back, in my mind, to high school. I
don’t ask Maria out for a date. I don’t ask Maria to the
prom because I think I need a “yes” and I’m afraid of a
“no.”
But what if I could alter that? What if I could shift
my mind? What would happen to the world I live in?
What if I did a total mindshift and I stopped thinking
and creating the story that said, “I need a yes” and I
begin to see it a different way. What if I were to think I
needed yeses and nos. I need yeses but I also need nos,
because if I’m OK with nos, in fact, if I’m actually
seeking nos and yeses (not just yeses) then I’m
perfectly happy to call people because they are going to
give me what I want. Every time!
They are going to give me nos and yeses. Exactly
what I’m after!
Once I can just have it be OK that I get “nos” and
“yeses,” and if I can really understand on a deep level
that yes lives in the land of no, then my client
acquisition challenges are over.
Because I’m now working with the truth. And the
truth will always set me free. Yes, it’s really true that
you cannot separate yes and no, any more than you can
separate heads and tails or life and death or night and
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day. They go together. They must go together. Any
attempt to separate them leads to misery.
You can’t separate up and down or north and south,
either. You need one in order to have the other.
Someone needs to be able, always, to say no, in order
for yes to mean anything at all.
Let’s say you had a bar magnet. Your bar magnet
has north on one end and south on the other and you say
to yourself, “Oh, I only want north! I am afraid of
south. South hurts my self esteem.” So you take some
tin snips and you cut off the south end. Now you see
that your bar magnet is shorter, but it still has a south
end!!!
“Oh shoot….that didn’t work!...it still has a south
end on it…” so you cut again, and you can keep cutting,
but you’ll never get rid of south.
It’s the same with a coin. It’s heads and tails.
You’ll never get rid of tails. Keep slicing that coin
thinner and thinner. Or file off the tails side, and you
can’t. It will always have both sides. Everything is like
that!
Yet, we go insane.
We think we need yes without no. We think we can’t
handle no. We think we have got to have a world of
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pure affirmation. A world of approval! A world of
appreciation of me.
It’s a sick delusion—it’s a narcissistic, paranoid,
delusion that we “need” constant approval—and that’s
the very delusion that stops us from getting what we
want.
Because in the face of possible rejection, we stop!
We close up shop, we hide, we crawl into a cocoon
(we’re not a butterfly anymore). We are now cocoons,
kind of inching our way through life on a linear path—
on our bellies moving along the ground—it’s a worm’s
life this way—trying to avoid no.
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26) NO is actually heaven on earth!
Now it’s time to just open myself up and say, “no is
fine with me—I need yeses and nos—in fact I need
plenty of nos because the more nos I get, the more
yeses I will get. Why? They go together. I finally get
that!”
Look at it this way. What if I gave you a coin and I
said to you, “OK, I’m going to pay you $100 for every
time you toss the coin and it lands on heads.” You’ve
got ten minutes to toss it.
So are you willing to toss the coin? Are you really
going to say, “I’m afraid to toss this coin because it
might land on tails and when it does I’ll know I won’t
get a hundred dollars”?
Then I walk up to you and say, “What are you
doing? I’ve given you ten minutes to flip the coin and
you’re not flipping it?”
And you said to me, “Well, I’m afraid if I flip it, it
will land on tails and you’re going to pay me only on
heads.”
And I say, “That’s true, but if you flip it and it lands
on tails, flip it again and keep flipping it because the
more tails you get, the more heads you’ll get!”
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The person with the most tails is also going to have
the most heads. The person who gets the most nos in
life is also going to get the most yeses. Yet to others
they will appear to be lucky. Fortunate. In the right
business at the right time. Having found a good
location. A good niche. Etc. All the things we say about
people who succeed, not knowing that their real secret
is that they are okay with no.
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27) Some know about this secret
I once went to a seminar, about 15 years ago, where the
leaders were enlightened to this secret of success. They
said they wanted to teach us to not only be okay with
no—but to actually seek it out.
They sent us out into the community one evening for
a two-hour meal break and the assignment was to get
five “nos” before we came back to the seminar.
It was amazing to people how hard that really was.
They thought it would be easy, but it wasn’t. Some
people asked the manager in the restaurant, “Could you
please have this meal be on the house for me? Would
you please have the restaurant pay for my meal? Just as
a gesture to me?” And in some cases the manager said
yes!
One person talked to a young woman, a cashier in a
grocery checkout line, and said, “Would you please go
out with me Saturday night? I know you don’t know
me, but I would love to take you out to dinner.” She
thought for a moment, shrugged her shoulders and said
yes!
There were all kinds of stories like this when people
got back to the seminar room. People were just startled.
They were shocked at how many surprising yeses they
got. And “yes” wasn’t of any value to them! Because
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they had to get a certain amount of nos before they
could come back to the seminar room.
The world is more ready to say yes than we realize.
But we never find that out because we are so afraid of
no. Yet, yes lives in the land of no. Yes does not live
in a separate land by itself. Just as south doesn’t live in
a separate land by itself. South on a bar magnet goes
with north.
You know the great Alan Watts actually created a
word for this deep hidden secret of life, and the word he
made up was “goeswith.”
Yes goeswith no.
You cannot have one without the other and trying to
separate them is like trying to split the atom with your
bare hands. It will not work. And yet we do it all day.
And yet, many of my clients, when we begin
working together, are attempting to split the atom it all
the time. Why didn’t you call? Who have you called?
How many people have you invited to do business with
you this week? How many people have you invited to
be a client of yours?
“Well…..uh….. nah…I’m afraid to call him…I’m
afraid….”
“Why?”
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“Well… you know I’m afraid he’ll say no…I’m
afraid he won’t want it…I’m afraid she won’t want to
do it.”
And so people are stopped from getting what they
want because they are afraid of people saying no.
But no, that’s not it. That’s not really it! Really,
that’s not what they’re afraid of.
They’re afraid of the story that goes with no!
They’re afraid of what that made-up story will do to
them. That story will shock them to their very being
about what a loser they are. How unlovable. How
unappreciated. How unwanted their service is. How
preposterous their fee is. How dare you ask me to be
your client? You are not worthy! That’s the story they
attach to no. No wonder it stops them.
But what if “no” were just information?
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28) A practice that eventually solves
the problem
Here’s one of the things I have my clients do if they’re
caught in this paranoid superstition that says “no” is
bad news. I have them seek no. We set up a game
wherein they can’t leave their desk without getting a
certain amount of “nos” that day.
Because once they are able and willing to get a
certain amount of “nos” every single day, the “yeses”
will come along for the ride with it—you can’t have
one without the other; they live together.
Again: the reason we don’t get the “yeses” when
asking for clients is that we are afraid of asking. We’re
afraid of the no. Well, what if the “no” were fine?
What if the “no” was just information? In fact what if
the no was what I was after?
“No” means nothing. It has no emotional charge
until I add it. It’s information that tells me either to
move on or to ask further questions, but that’s all it is.
When I am sane, and in a mentally healthy frame of
mind, “no” cannot be bad news. I’m always okay with
it.
If there’s ever a day or a week and I’m in the job of
enrolling or selling or getting people to join or become
a customer or client of mine or whatever I’m doing—
getting people to donate money to my non-profit—
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getting somebody to go out with me—anything like
that—If I’m willing to get a bunch of nos every day,
I’ll have more yeses than anyone else.
They’ll say, “How do you do it? You must have a
magic touch! You’re a born salesperson! How do you
sell so well? You’re just a natural.”
Not really. I have just defused “no.” “No” is just
information. It’s not a condemnation of me—it’s not
the last judgment about me—it’s just information—
that’s all it is.
So when I wake up in the morning I want to get
yeses and nos. I want to get a lot of yeses and I want to
get a lot of nos. In fact, if I’m not getting very many
nos there’s something about my prices that’s got to be
wimpy and weak. Because if my requests were
something that caused everybody to say, “Well,
yeah…sure!” what kind of life would I be living?
A safe life.
But safety is the enemy here. It’s not what you think
it is. It’s not really security, as you imagine. It’s
dangerous. It’s like flying a plane too slowly because
you’re afraid of crashing. Ask a pilot what happens
when you get below a certain air speed. You plunge
toward the earth.
Yet we try to live that way.
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So, what Byron Katie said is really profound when
you think about it. If you are willing to ask 1,000
people, you can have anything you want.
People kind of nod their heads when she says this.
But only one in a million is willing to ask a thousand
people for something. Think of the discouragement!
Think of the meaning they would attach to the first
100 nos they would get.
But if they could see that “no” has no meaning—that
there’s no meaning at all when someone says “no,” then
they would have a lightness, a playful freedom about
this whole thing called making money, getting clients
and prosperity.
Because, really, “no” doesn’t mean anything. If
someone comes to the door and asks me to enroll in
their religion, my saying “no” doesn’t mean anything
other than no. It’s just information that I’m not ready to
do that at this moment—that’s all it means. It doesn’t
mean that there is something wrong with their religion,
it doesn’t mean that I’m prejudiced or doesn’t mean
that I am an atheist or that I am a heretical person, or it
doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean that they are
bad sales people either. Those are stories that people
can make up about my no. Please don’t make up any
stories about my no. Let it just be a simple no.
When people have stories about life that are
different than real life, fear takes over. Discord, inner
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conflict and fear. Because these stories are always
worse than life itself really is. What goes on in my
mind is always more frightening than reality. Always.
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29) This is a very popular story
Here’s a very popular story (and it keeps us from the
joy of life):
“I couldn’t handle it if that happened.”
I’m afraid of foreclosure. I’m afraid of illness. I’m
afraid I might go bankrupt. I’m afraid she would leave
me. I’m afraid my child would get injured.
“But why are you afraid of that?”
Well, because, you know, I don’t think I could
handle. I don’t think I could handle it if that happened.
What I don’t see about that thought is that it’s never
true. Yet it’s the big fear that causes all the other fear.
It’s the story of “I couldn’t handle that,” that causes all
the fear in my life when my mind projects the future.
When I do worst-case scenarios and I project all the
scary things that might happen to me.
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30) It’s not even true
If I look back on my life and look at how I’ve lived my
life right up till now, I can’t find anything I was not
able to handle. And I have been a total coward most of
the time! Yet I have handled everything. Sometimes
things were uncomfortable for awhile, sometimes it was
rough, but I handled it.
Most people realize this on their deathbeds. But not
before. They realize that all their worries, the worries
that dominated their lives every day, were meaningless.
One of the most profound experiences I’ve ever had
was when I worked with Devers Branden, a brilliant
and kind woman who was also a great coach and
consultant. She utilized something she called “the
deathbed exercise.” (I wrote about this in the first
chapter of 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself.)
Devers had her clients imagine that they were on
their deathbed. So I would lie back and close my eyes
and picture myself being on my deathbed because we
were doing the deathbed exercise.
Then she had me look back on my whole life and
have people come into the room and say goodbye to me
and I would say goodbye to them—it was really a
movingly profound experience. But one of the things I
noticed while looking back on my life now that I was
dying was that there wasn’t ever anything that was as
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bad as I feared it would be. Nothing really turned out
“wrong.” Not from the perspective of looking back.
Ever. Ever.
Even things that other people consider very tragic
and horrifying and alarming and catastrophic. I’ve had
those in my life. Maybe I’ve even had more than most,
but never, ever was it something that I couldn’t handle.
And it wasn’t because I was some kind of great paragon
of courage—I certainly wasn’t. It was because nothing
in reality is as bad as the mind makes it ahead of time.
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31) Yeah, but what about foreclosure?
I have a close friend—a very talented, gifted young
man who had a foreclosure on his house. So he moved
through that and moved quickly into a rented home, and
kept creating the life he wanted, and rebounded and
turned his life around, and turned his financial fortunes
around by creating what he wanted, and staying upbeat
and staying in action, and not having a huge story about
the foreclosure—it’s just what happened.
Because he didn’t have some “story” that brought
him down, he was able to handle it quickly.
Other people (on the other hand) tell me, “I’m going
through a tough time, I can’t sell, I can’t enroll clients, I
can’t even talk to my wife and kids because I’m so
consumed by fear that we might lose the house.”
“All right. So why are you afraid of that?” I ask
them. “Why would you be afraid of that?”
“Uh….Uh….Oh….I couldn’t handle it if we lost the
house.”
“Really?
yourself?”
What would you do?
Would you kill
“No.…no….No, I’d never kill myself, but……”
So, what they finally (if they really sit with it and
stay with it) realize is that it’s not true that they
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couldn’t handle it. There are lots of things they would
do if that became the reality. And they could handle it,
and they would handle it. You’ll always handle what’s
there in the moment and nothing will be outside the
moment unless you project it.
All fear is a projection of the future. It’s never about
what’s going on at the moment.
So how does this awareness help me get clients?
Just this way. If I were willing to have a world of
“yeses” and “nos”—which would be the world of
beneficent reality, and if I were willing to see that yes
lives in the land of no, just like to have daytime I have
to have night, then I can be in action acquiring clients
all the time.
People who have terminal cancer often have a
remarkable thing occur—and actually this is not just the
few remarkable people we read about—this is most
people. They have a new appreciation of life when they
have terminal cancer. All of a sudden, every day
becomes really precious. Every hour! Every moment.
Every conversation becomes valuable and gratifying
and important and wonderful and lovely. Why is this?
Because of finally accepting that death goeswith life.
In a funny way, death gives us life! We wouldn’t
have life if there wasn’t death—we wouldn’t have a
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distinction for it. It wouldn’t feel like life. It wouldn’t
feel like anything.
Without death life would be the ultimate nightmare.
Like a basketball game and that will never be over.
Picture an NBA game where they decided they were
not going to run a clock—no clock, no quarters! We’re
just going to play and play and play and play. Well, that
would be a nightmare. It would be a nightmare for the
players to have no end of the game. It would be a
nightmare for the people watching the game—to have
no end of the game.
Same would be true if life were everlasting here on
earth. It would be a nightmare if there were no end of
the game—there would be no sense of life. You can’t
have a sense of life without death. You can’t have yes
without no. You can’t have daytime without night. If
there were ever a situation where there was no
nighttime, daytime wouldn’t seem like anything at all.
There wouldn’t be anyone saying, “Oh, what a
lovely day”—there would be no sense of a lovely day.
“What a beautiful day?” No, it’s always like this.
(Welcome to Arizona!)
So the key right here to getting what we want is to
have “no” be good. Not just OK, but to have “no” be
exactly what we want. I want yeses and nos.
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That’s why I require that my clients get a certain
amount of nos. It’s an assignment. Don’t leave your
workstation without your five nos today and if they are
getting harder to get, then raise your fees, create better
projects that you offer people. Create some outrageous,
unreasonable proposal to a client, so it’s a slam-dunk
“no.” You need your “no.” You need five of them! So
you propose big and your prospect says, “No!” and you
clap your hands and say, “OK, good! Thanks, I only
need four more!” and the more comfortable you get
with that—the easier that becomes for you—the more
wonderful life becomes.
Why does life get more wonderful? Because in any
conversation you are in you won’t wait to ask for the
business later. You won’t be thinking, “Some day, once
I’ve won them over…some day once I get them to
appreciate me…some day, once I have credibility with
them…I’m going to ask them for the business…yes, I’ll
ask them to be my client!”
How pathetic does that now sound? But that’s what
most people do all day long.
“Oh, I don’t have the credibility yet, I haven’t won
them over,” and they don’t ask.
Whereas there are other people (successful people
with all the clients they could ever want) who would
ask right then and there, “Will you join me?”
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“Is that something you would be willing to do?”
What a beautiful question that is. Study it. Notice
that the answer it seeks is yes or no. That’s why it’s so
beautiful. The coin is now in the air! Most people keep
the coin in their pocket.
If the person says “no,” I want to say, “Excellent! I
got an answer. I collect answers. I gather them like
flowers, like applies, like berries, I love them. They
make me a wealthy person.” Yes-no questions have me
in action. They have me living life in the land of yes
and no and embracing all of life—yes and no.
It’s only when I embrace all of life, the yes and the
no, that the yeses come. It’s mathematically impossible
for this not to happen. It’s just so obvious when you
can detach yourself from it. That’s why I like to use the
example and the story of paying someone $100 for
every heads they get when they toss the coin.
They’re going to toss and toss and toss and when
you look back (if I did this with 100 people) the people
who got the most tails, also got the most money! Even
though I only paid on heads. Because they figured out
how to toss the coin the most times and so they got the
most money.
None of them figured out how to toss the coin so it
would land more often on heads. That would be folly
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(yet that’s what most people trying to acquire clients do
all day).
When I ask you if you’ll do something—“Will you
join my club? Will you become my client? Will you
be my apprentice?” When I ask you that, I really want
you to be able to say “no.” I don’t want you to be
forced to say yes. I want you to have freedom of
choice.
It’s a good thing that people can say either yes or no.
It’s freedom! Don’t we all love freedom? When people
ask me something—like will you join my religion or
will you buy this car?—I love being able to say yes or
no. That’s the beauty of it. The beauty is the yes and
the no going together—both always there as options,
living together in harmony—supporting each other.
The one creates the possibility of the other. That’s
why it’s literally insane to demonize “no” or to be
afraid of “no.” Or to think of it as rejection. It’s
literally insane. It’s like a child being afraid of
nighttime.
“Oh….oh….the world’s coming to an end and the
sun is going away….”
And you hear about primitive superstitions that
various people had about the “disappearance” of the
sun. It was so primitive and we laugh now and “how
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could they be such idiots and cowards and superstitious
and how could they believe that?”
Well, we are worse!
We believe there is something wrong with “no” and
“no” is harmful and “no” does damage to us.
Picture the guy flipping coins, believing that when it
turns up tails it means, “Oh, my gosh, no I won’t get
paid…I’m depressed…I can’t even move my thumb
now…I can’t even flip this coin. It’s so heavy to me
having just gotten tails on a flip!”
Now that would be just insane—we would come up
to him and say, “Look, you’re going crazy here…don’t
worry about it…just flip it again. Just flip it again
because you’re going to get your $100 on every heads.
So just flip it. If you get a tails, just flip it again, flip it
again, flip it again, flip it again.”
And that’s the answer to your success, too. That’s
where the money comes from. It’s not having any story
about tails other than this one: “Time to flip again!”
Not having any story about “no” other than, “Time to
ask someone else!”
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32) The best questions I get about
getting and keeping clients
Q. I am currently requiring my clients to pay me in
full up front. I’m a little scared to do that in this
economy, can you tell me how I can do that without
scaring them off?
I love that you are being clear and strong with your
clients about payment. By doing this you will model
no-nonsense adult commitment to keeping one’s word.
One reason my own clients pay up front is that I don’t
want to waste one precious moment collecting from
them. That’s a moment I could have used to coach them
and make their lives better.
Q. The day gets hectic, and I know it’s a numbers
game of how many prospective clients I can talk to
in one day, so how do I keep from stressing out?
Stay in the conversations. No sale was ever created
outside of a conversation. And slow down! Slow down
so you can think big. One benefit of slowing down and
THINKING BIG is that you have greater potential for
creating big projects with your client and not just
grabbing the minimum. Good things happen when we
slow it down and really take time to ask ourselves (and
them) how we can really help.
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Q. How do I know if I’m on the right track with my
client-acquisition systems?
Your billings will tell you. Look at your bank
account. It will not lie to you. That’s how you know
whether you are serving humanity or not. The number
will tell you.
To get more clients, be in more conversations that
have a person decide to go with you or not.
Get into those conversations, and have those very
conversations themselves help people. Get out of your
world and into theirs.
How do you plan your day? Is it to honor those
conversations and make lots of space for them? Or is it
being busy with other things? You will never defy this
formula: the more conversations, the more billings.
Touch people deeply with your conversations all day
long. Don’t chat.
Q. How much of my time should I spend
establishing my credentials to a prospect?
To serve and love people you do not need an
involved prior stamp of approval from them. You do
not need to please them and win them over first. Just
demonstrate what you can do. Have every
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communication demonstrate something you want
demonstrated.
Q. I’ve been having tons of conversations and I can’t
seem to get any clients interested. How do I know
there’s light at the end of the tunnel?
There is no tunnel. Your light is eternal. It’s not in
some imaginary future tunnel. There is no light at the
end of the tunnel. These are all false concepts…worried
mind parasites that eat your life up. You ARE the light.
People who meet you see the light in you. But you
don’t?
Anxiety can only come from a thought that you have
attached the VELCRO of belief to. What you are
believing says, “The future will be bright ONCE certain
things happen…the house gets sold, the kids move out,
I find a school or job, I re-settle!”
You keep pushing the light away into a future. You
can only stress yourself out by these unreal mental
visits to a “better future.” Get real with yourself now.
It's more relaxing that way.
Self esteem is everything here. Not false ego, but
deep, inner, quiet and confident self esteem, the kind
that both comes from being effective and leads to
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being effective. It serves you and your clients. Practice
it.
Q. I notice that I get so much more quality work
done on the weekend or in the evenings during
uninterrupted time. Is there a lesson in that for
acquiring clients?
I like your insight about uninterrupted time. The
mind goes haywire when it's interrupted, and
sometimes takes a full hour to restore itself to sanity.
From one tiny interruption.
One hour of pure, solitary uninterrupted time is
worth two or three hours of chaos. Growing a
prosperous client list is benefited by this insight. Then
you can practice an inner discipline of quiet choices
executed in silence that has you doing things that lead
to big contracts instead of all the people-pleasing that
slows prosperity to a standstill.
Q. I’ve been giving away a lot of my time lately
doing free consulting, hoping it will lead later on to
clients. How do you feel about this?
WATCH OUT for the temptation to give away your
time pro bono or for the time you spend doing anything
as a “means to an end.” You serve people more when
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you interact with them professionally! (Which means
you get paid for it. That’s what professional means. Are
you ready to be a professional? To turn pro?)
Giving away your time is giving your life
away...why not give your money away instead and keep
your precious time for major billing activities? I know
you are a giver, and you have a passion for changing
the world. But! You will change the world more if you
are performing your profession than if you are bopping
around sharing yourself for nothing.
Do NOTHING (and I mean nothing...and I am
speaking to everyone, including ME) as a MEANS TO
AN END. Do the thing itself. You don’t have to be
roundabout.
Q. I had a prospective client who was all excited
about working with me and even said, “Let’s do
this!” but I have not heard back in a long time and
now I wonder what to do.
Whenever someone says, "Let's do this," make
certain you don't let any time go by between that
moment and putting the first work on the calendar.
Take that spoken commitment seriously and schedule a
payment and service time.
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Q. I’m thinking of writing a book. I know it will help
me get clients. But I have no discipline for writing it.
I keep avoiding writing this book. Any ideas?
Boy I know what it’s like to start a book! But your
problems are not real. They are all a projection of the
mind. It’s your thinking that’s the problem, not the
book. You’re thinking of ALL THAT work instead of
just doing one little thing to start.
I used to trick my mind when starting. I’d say, “15
minutes on the book today, NO MORE” and then do 15
minutes. It would amaze me how much I could do and
how easy and fun it was to start the book….all the
HELL I put myself through PROJECTING the book,
when in reality it was fun and easy. It always is. So
trick yourself into doing it.
Fool the worried mind’s desire to scare you.
Q. Right now I’m putting in 12-hour days for my
client although I am only billing for about two hours
a day of work…I still want to do a great job, and
this is how I work. Do you see a downside?
Your willingness to work around the clock to deliver
for someone is on the one hand admirable, but as an
hourly consultant that will end up taking you down
financially. Remember your client is paying for your
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brainpower, not your literal number of minutes
expended. Charge for your brains, not for the daylaborer mentality that has you equate volume of work
with fees.
Q. Tell me an immediate reliable source for me
getting new clients. I have an okay client list, but I
could use twice as many. How do I begin?
Every client you now have has a business associate,
former colleague, family member or good friend who
would LOVE your work.
Just ask your clients to give you a name. And ask in
the context of service: "I'm opening another client
opportunity next month and I have a list of interested
parties to fill the opening, but before I went to them I
thought I would offer that opening to you in case you
had anyone in your life that you believe would benefit
from the kind of work that you and I have been doing
together. Anyone in your network of friends, business
associates, family or clients that comes to mind as a
worthy candidate?”
When your client says, “Why yes!” then you might
say, “Would you have them contact me and let them
know that my first consultation with them will have no
fee attached and will be a gift from you to them?"
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Q. What’s another good way to get referrals?
Relate past client successes to current clients…in
your time with a current client, tell your client about
other client breakthroughs...you don’t have to mention
names…but just tell the stories. Telling Client A your
Client B success stories is something you should
NEVER forget to do! It will inspire your current clients
to higher levels of commitment to their success, and it
will establish you further as a person who gets results,
and finally, unexpectedly, it will lead to referrals. I have
often, after telling one client about another’s
breakthrough, had my client refer someone right on the
spot! Stories always get the right side of the brain lit
up.
Q. How do I get prospects to answer my emails?
I try to put a lot of value for them into the email.
But I don’t hear back.
People reply to emails and voicemails, not because
they perceive value, but because you have made them
curious. So never forget that if you want a prospect to
return a message, be sure you have made them curious
about something you'll talk about when they call you.
Surveys show that curiosity is the NUMBER ONE
reason people return calls and emails, and quite often
when you are trying to demonstrate value, you are
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simply perceived as selling (because you are). You can
be more creative than that.
I highly recommend Tom Freese’s wonderful book,
Question-Based Selling, because it has the best
approach to this subject I have ever seen.
Q. I don’t want to get too obsessed with how I’m
doing financially and how low my billings are, do I?
Why not? It’s just numbers. Like musical notes.
It's important to think a lot about what billings are
possible for you this coming week, because billings
reflect service. Billings mean you are serving.
You want to enjoy billing people, because only by
billing them do you have a true exchange, a true
connection, a true collaboration. True love.
(In the song Bing Crosby sings with Grace Kelly
called True Love, it goes, "I give to you and you give to
me, true love, true love.")
Billings become your guardian angel.
Q. How do I keep my mind off how bad I need the
business when I’m talking to a prospect?
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Keep focusing on your prospects' prosperity more
than yours. The more you focus on the prosperity of
your clients, the more prosperity you will have....it will
always work that way. You can't spend a full week
actively connecting with people and helping them
without money and contracts coming in. I've never seen
it happen.
What I do see happening is selling...cold calling...the
person focused on his own prosperity, not his clients’.
When that happens, the well runs dry. That's when we
sit on the bank and watch the crawdads die.
The relaxed, carefree person is more likely to hit a
free throw than the one who thinks he really needs to
make it.
You would make an absolute fortune if you would
relax into it and truly BE a great professional instead of
DOING it to get quick money. And I do understand
being without money. I understand that more than
anyone you know. That’s why I teach these things. All
these things I teach about getting clients worked for me,
over and over.
Q. What do I do when there is a faraway client
interested in working with me, and I really don’t
want to do it. I feel irresponsible saying NO, but to
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travel all that distance to work with them fills me
with dread.
Don’t say no. Simply quote a very large fee. So
large that you no longer mind the travel. Let them say
no.
We have this fear of quoting large fees. We think it’s
arrogant or offensive or abusive. We have an inner
voice that says, “How dare you?” Then we imagine our
prospect saying that: How dare you?
But here's the beauty of stating a large fee instead of
saying no.
When you say, for example, “$10,000,” it goes into
the world. It gets repeated by other people. Word of
mouth spreads. And soon people see you as being that
value. You must if people pay that amount for your
services. So even if they say no, it is not a wasted
conversation at all.
Also, your own subconscious mind hears you say it.
So it becomes accepted internally. Therefore the next
time you speak your normal fee of "$3,000" you say it
so lightly and breezily that people sense that you're
giving them a very good price for the work you do.
What, by the way, should it be worth to change
someone's life for the better?
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Q. I have a hard time focusing my proposals on my
customer. They end up being all about me, and my
rejection rate is high.
No wonder. Who wants to read about you? People
are interested in their own problems and opportunities,
so make the proposal about that.
And then take it even further than that. If you really
want to get clients, start talking about the client’s
customer. Have your proposal be about helping them
get customers, and the qualities and tendencies of their
customers.
Have those proposals you submit focus on the
customer's customer. Make sure they are lovingly
created and beautifully re-written a few times as if they
were chapters in your new book. Have the creation of
proposals be thorough and relaxed and artful, otherwise
don't do them.
When a prospect realizes that you share their
commitment to obtaining customers, that it’s your
fascination and obsession, then you will get the
business. So never focus on yourself. And don’t even
focus on your prospect. FOCUS ON YOUR
PROSPECT’S PROSPECT. Write that on your wall. I
put it in all caps so you wouldn’t forget.
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Q. How do I promote myself better? How do I let the
world know what my service is? I’ve only had one
referral in the past two months, so I probably need
to promote myself better.
Treat that referral very, very seriously. Have your
relationship to someone who refers someone be VERY
special. Allow that person to experience, with you, the
thrill of making a difference in someone's life. Give
them updates and keep them in the loop. The better you
cultivate the referrals you do get the more referrals you
will get. This, by the way, is much more important than
marketing.
Most businesses I coach put way too much time in
doing what they think is “good marketing and PR” by
laboring over their websites, newsletters, spams,
brochures, scams, shout-outs, giveaways, webinars, talk
shows, free workshops, etc., etc. Compared to having a
great relationship with someone who has referred
someone to you, all that other stuff is a complete waste
of time. Your practice will grow the fastest when you
slow down and enter into long conversations. If you
learn to do that well, you'll never need to “promote”
yourself. Self-promotion is a form of insecurity and is
always seen by your prospective clients as that.
Q. You are always emphasizing the physical in your
writing. Obtaining physical strength and endurance
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through exercise. But how does that really help me
get clients?
The way you look is not unimportant. Most people
feel that if you can’t manage yourself, how can you
manage their business?
But that’s only the most superficial way being in
shape helps you get clients. There’s something that runs
even deeper.
As I have pointed out before: Bobby Fischer was
the only American in recent times to ever become the
world chess champion and he was World Chess
champion when he beat Boris Spassky. He and
Spassky had skill sets that were very similar—there
wasn't a great deal of difference between them in chessplaying skill. But what he did that Spassky did not do
was … ready for this?... he swam laps under water in
preparation for his chess match.
By doing that he had a great deal more oxygen going
to his brain during the chess match than Spaasky did.
Spaasky was a heavy smoker, was overweight and
Spaasky saw chess as only a mental game—all you use
is your brain so why do you have to take care of your
body?
One of the things about success in life that seems to
be an ironic coincidence is that when people really
understand mind-body-spirit—all three elements of
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success—wealth is drawn to them faster. They simply
have more energy and more creativity. They are in a
better state of mind. They are happier, they are more
fun to deal with, they are more upbeat (and this is all
physical).
When you take care of yourself physically you will
think better, you'll be more open, you'll listen better,
you'll bring more enthusiasm to what you do.
So get physically in tune.
The more you work out and eat right (I recommend
the book, Good Calories Bad Calories) and take care of
yourself, literally, the better your circulation. Your
blood is of a different character, there's more oxygen
going to the brain, and whatever your IQ is, the more
oxygen you have going to the brain, the more creative
thoughts you have. This is just a biological fact.
So, listen to Bobby Fischer when he says that people
succeed faster and better when they get that component
of success that has to do with fitness, and oxygen, and
taking care of the body. Understanding that everything
you bring to the world is mind, body and spirit—you
can't leave any one of those three elements out without
suffering in your success.
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Q. You are always telling me I’ll get more clients if I
slow down. But I feel like I need to speed up because
I’m behind in my goals!
I hear you. I understand the mental conflict. It is not
NORMAL in this culture to slow down. Everyone else
is speeding up! Which is why it gives you such a huge
advantage.
At least four times a day whisper...big self to little
self... “s l o w d o w n.” As you get off the elevator and
stride rapidly toward your client's office, “slow down.”
As you spin in your chair to place a call, slow down.
Slow down.
You will get more clients. Experience proves this.
Q. I’m a life coach but I think this question might
apply to all people seeking better client income.
When a client contacts me and asks for a proposal
for my work, how do I maximize the fact that they
contacted me first?
Here's the prosperity-builder that maximizes that
situation: call it: Multiple Options. (You have to slow
down to do this...but it works wonders.)
Any time any client wants you to do anything, coach
them, serve them, give them a massage, speak to their
leadership team, paint their garage, do a one on one
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with someone, etc....ALWAYS come back to them with
at least two choices for them: a) What they already
want and b) something BIGGER and more helpful than
that. Always do this.
So if you get a call from the husband of a husband
and wife team who own a small business and he says, “I
want you to coach me,” use that conversation to ask
about 20 questions about his world, his business and
especially his customers. Who are they? How do we
attract them? Etc., Etc. Then when you PROPOSE you
say, “I am happy to do what you asked (choice A,
coaching him, something you've already GOT), and
after our conversation I gave it a lot of thought and
wanted to offer you another choice and that would
be…” —fill in the blank here, but it's always something
bigger and more helpful to his life than just the thing
HE wanted—you might just say, “I am recommending
that I coach both you AND your wife, both separately,
and on some occasions together, which will, I believe,
move your goals forward much faster.” The client does
not have to accept Plan B.
Worst case: he says, “Well, let's just go with
coaching me for now.” Fine! But the bigger plan is now
on the table and the better the coaching goes the more
he wants to expand to that bigger plan. And when he
asks you to now include his wife, once again you don't
simply do that. You give him that (which he already
wants) plus SOMETHING BIGGER (a full leadership
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retreat) that now that you've been coaching him you see
would be enormously helpful. Think bigger.
Whenever somebody wants you for something, let
them choose between what they already want, and
something bigger and bolder and more helpful to them
than what they want. Clients don't KNOW what else
you could be offering them. You do. Their vision is
RESTRICTED to the thing they think they want. Help
your clients think bigger every time. Don't rush from
client to client always trying to get new clients when
you could be expanding your services for existing
clients all across the board.
By the way you will NEVER lose this way. If the
client says no to the $20,000 idea and just goes with the
$5,000 idea, he now thinks he's going the frugal, lowfee route with you. You have expanded his thinking...so
when he writes the check for $5,000 he contrasts it to
the $20,000 he THOUGHT ABOUT paying you and
suddenly sees $5,000 as very, very small.
By stretching your client, and always having him
choose between a bigger number and the number he
already wants, worst case you shrink that number, and
best case (and this will happen more than you can
realize ahead of time...I've seen it happen WAY over
50% of the time once people get the hang of this) you
will have them make the bigger choice.
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But this, too, comes from slowing down. And asking
yourself as you take on a new client, what could I
REALLY be doing here? What if I were thinking BIG
instead of small?
Q. How do I develop a sense of security about my
business? I don’t want to have to get clients every
time a big bill is due.
Create a business savings account. Put 10% of every
incoming check into that account so that you never
have to negotiate from fear-of-no-money again. Admire
the growth of that account as other people panic
whenever they “can’t get credit.”
Look back on your past two years. Could you have
made it on 90% of that income? Of course. So do it
now.
Q. What’s the most effective way to achieve my
client acquisition goals?
Translate your OUTCOME goals into PROCESS
goals.
If you have an outcome goal of billing $50,000 by
November, convert that immediately into a process
goal…doable activity. You might now commit to
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making five $25,000 proposals in the next three weeks.
You NEVER know where a proposal will lead…but it
can never be bad. What’s bad is to stress out over
outcomes in life. Always jump into your PROCESS.
It’s something you are sure to win. And it keeps you in
action.
Whether you make those five proposals is totally up
to you. So you are in control. That’s the beauty of a
process goal versus an outcome goal. Spend your time
in the process.
Outcome goals can freeze you in your tracks. They
remind you that you don’t have something you think
you ought to have. That thought can shut down your
whole system.
Michael Phelps may have dreamed of Olympic
Gold, but his daily work was always about PROCESS.
He had laps and miles and times and MEASURABLE,
DOABLE activities to do.
Therefore every DAY was entirely satisfying. He
was a daily winner.
Have your every day be entirely satisfying and
fulfilling.
Q. What do I do when I am exhausted from the
pressure of my hectic workload? Everyone agrees
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that traveling is brutal, and when I get home it’s this
workload that has piled up…when do I find the time
or energy left over to get clients?
It can be a “workload” only if you say it is.
It becomes whatever you call it.
Start here: Allow for space around travel so that you
don’t go “hectic” out of fatigue and frustration. Why
not set a work day aside to do nothing? And I mean
nothing; no activities on behalf of friends and
family….just nothing.
Bill Gates used to take a full month off every year to
do NOTHING! Just to slack off, be lazy and loaf. Do
you think loafing is negative? Do you think it’s wrong?
Are you still in childhood? Parental scolding voice
between your ears?
Loafing is a source for creative genius.
The month Gates took off and loafed around was
always the month that quantum leaps in imagination
occurred within him…he would bring the ideas into
Microsoft a month later and they would result in
billions of dollars being made. It takes great courage to
decide to do nothing, for nothing is the very HEART of
all creativity.
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Q. Is it possible to be too busy to succeed?
Oh, absolutely! In fact it is the norm! So slow down.
Spend at least one hour EACH DAY in quiet
contemplative, meditative practice-building time
wherein you take no calls and send no emails.
Go to the park if you must, with a yellow pad, and
just allow your meditative, creative self to
subconsciously BUBBLE UP some ideas on enrolling
clients and expanding your business. You’ll be amazed.
Napoleon Hill and Earl Nightingale both said this
was the most important success factor in their lives—
that one hour each day of non-structured creative
thinking time.
Q. I’m worried about how my clients will react when
they see how young I am when I meet them?
(I also get versions of this question called How
Old, That I’m A Woman, etc., etc.)
YOU get to decide, shape, influence and CREATE
how they will react to that and anything else. Make it a
HUGE PLUS for them. Show them the advantages of it.
Don’t sit back and let yourself be judged. You do the
judging.
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Clients are waiting and longing for YOU to create
the context and the paradigm of understanding of the
great service only you can offer.
You get to say who you are and what you do.
When your own story is filled with enough energy
and light they will be BLINDED by how good it
is….you will INSTRUCT THEM how to interpret
you…then you will LIVE INSIDE to the very picture
you have created for them…
They are not better than you. They are not superior
to you. So take the lead and shape their brains any way
you want. They are waiting for you to define the
context of all they see!
Their opinion of you is CLAY and PUTTY in the
hands of a sculptor who knows their own value and
WHERE she is going and WHY. Create your own
momentum.
Q. I’m raising my fees. Anything I should do to
make that less terrifying for me?
Don’t just have your fees be raised. Raise
everything!
Let fees be raised as a logical byproduct of raising
everything else. Raise the game. Raise the stakes. Raise
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the level of service. Raise the commitment you are
personally making to them. Raise the STAKE you are
asking them to put into the game. Change everything.
No more chatting, commiserating and petty advicegiving to your clients in the name of service. You are
changing the rules of this game. Step it up. Give it a
backbone. Challenge them. Change everything. Invite
them to play at a different level. Add one more level of
service (not more of your time) from you to them and
one HUGE level of commitment from them to you.
Require something from them you haven’t required in
the past.
And then once you’ve communicated the new game,
in a wholly enthusiastic way, you add that OF
COURSE you are strengthening your fee so that it’s
appropriate to the work ahead.
Q. How do I keep from being intimidated by my
prospective clients whose business I want so badly?
Communicate without being needy.
If we could hold our value, and hold the certainty of
what a service we are to people, we would never feel
needy.
So never see your prospects as SUPERIOR to you.
You have something unique to offer them. They do
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NOT have anything unique to offer you! They have
money. That’s it!
That's the best they can do for you.
But you can get money anywhere. They can't get
you anywhere. They can only get you through you. You
can always move on and get the exact amount of money
they are offering. You can always get it elsewhere. But
they cannot move on and get your exact service
anywhere else. You can get money anywhere. So they
should be the needy ones, not you.
Q. I really am awful at handling rejection. Any tips?
Our greatest OBSTACLE in building our client list
is FEAR… fear of not being liked and appreciated. But
to let this fear run our day (by making it a week without
proposals) is to be very confused about life and love
and wealth.
So… have your proposals be fun, loving and
creative...put as much into them as you would a short
chapter in a book.
Remember that proposals are PROCESS not
OUTCOME. Outcomes can bring pressure, as we bite
our nails worried about an uncertain future, whereas
PROCESS is something you can do right now, slowly,
lovingly, creatively and wisely all the live long day.
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Enough process work and outcomes always come
easily. The reason (but only always) we don’t get the
outcome we want in life is that we are AVOIDING
THE PROCESS.
Q. How often should I look at what it is I offer my
clients?
Reinvent yourself constantly. Keep looking at ways
to do that so that you are spending a lot of time working
ON your business instead of just working IN your
business.
As you sit with clients and note their problems and
struggles, keep thinking of something new you might
offer them.
Another possible addition to how your business
operates is to always have a follow-up call the day after
a particularly powerful meeting with a client. Like a
doctor or dentist who is thoughtful enough to call you
after surgery. This only takes three minutes, but clients
really love it. It helps anchor your role as someone who
is really THERE for them 24/7 instead of someone who
simply bills by the project and then leaves.
It deepens the connection. What’s the cost to you?
Three minutes? Five minutes?
Sometimes a meeting with your client can be so
paradigm-shattering that the client doesn’t quite believe
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it has happened. By checking in, and doing your
follow-up reality check, you can really SUPPORT your
client in anchoring the new commitments and
breakthroughs. You’ll make them more real and lasting.
If we only communicated enough love for our clients
we would have more wealth than we knew what to do
with.
Q. What do I do when people say they can’t afford
me?
Just stay in the conversation. Don’t let that be the
deal-breaker.
One thing I like to say is, “I do get it that you can’t
afford me right now, but I’m really interested in what
we would work on together if you could afford the
work. Let’s talk about that.”
Because a lot of times when I do that, people see
that the things they want to have breakthroughs in
would make ANY FEE worth it.
Have the conversation that let’s them create the
successful vision. Let them describe the breakthroughs
they are after.
When the conversation is over, you can say WHEN
YOU ARE READY TO COMMIT TO AND CREATE
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THAT BREAKTHROUGH YOU JUST DESCRIBED
CALL ME AND WE’LL BEGIN.
Q. I am having a hard time trusting that there will
be abundance flowing to my business.
Why would you have to trust that? Why add the task
of learning to trust on top of what you are already doing
with your time? Why not create the abundance? Why
not just produce it? What’s trust got to do with it?
I would always question whether you have to “trust”
things. Things like “the flow and abundance.”
I don’t have to learn to trust that electricity will
work when I turn on the light switch. It just works
whether I trust it or not. So the whole concept of trust,
in my experience, adds a dimension of doubt and
postpones my service to another. That’s just my
experience.
Q. How do I become a public speaker? I know I
could be a good one, but I don’t know how or where
to begin.
Start by really wanting to do it. Because if you really
wanted to do it, you wouldn’t be asking me this, you
would be speaking somewhere right now.
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This is the rule of thumb: if you want to be a
speaker,
speak…there
are
opportunities
everywhere …once I committed to being a public
speaker I spoke at least once a week…I gave free talks,
but they led to paid talks…..every business has a sales
meeting or a team meeting where they would LOVE to
have you come do a 15-minute talk……and if they like
the talk they will have you back…..all the groups who
meet…and I myself put on a free Goal Achievement
seminar every Thursday night at 7 open to the
public….I had a business let me use their big
room…first night there was one person attending…next
week that person came back and brought two
friends….within a year it was standing room only, and
within that same year Texas Instruments was paying my
company $40,000 a day to have me come to give them
seminars………from zero to $40,000 in less than a
year….all because I was committed…COMMITTED to
having that happen…..we can have ANYTHING
happen if we are willing to commit…..which means
total focus and devotion to it and a willingness to be a
little crazy about knowing deep down how great you
are willing to be.
Q. How do I get rid of my fear of rejection?
Why would you fear your best friend?
115
Because NO is your best friend. It is like Pacino’s
little friend in Scarface. It’s how you learn all you
know.
NO stops 95% of people in life. It makes them afraid
to move toward their dream with requests & promises
because once a couple of requests get declined they
form a STORY about being UNWANTED, NOT
ENOUGH, unappreciated and unlovable.
Then they find clever ways to fill their days without
ever making any requests. They can’t get rejected if
they don’t ask. Clever. But miserable. And broke, too.
Q. Should I start a blog? I’m not crazy about the
idea, and I don’t really like to write, but I’ve heard
it helps get clients.
Forget the blog……cut to the chase! Unless blogging
is a true, deep love with you, and you would do it even if
you were a retired billionaire, then don’t do it….do what
you love…if coaching others is what you love, why not
just do that? What do you (and all of us) believe we
must do to establish credibility? It’s all insecure
nonsense based on the fear that we don’t really offer
anything (despite huge evidence to the contrary).
Deep-seated self-esteem issues do NOT get fixed
with things done to “increase credibility.” I have trained
over 30 Fortune 500 companies over the past
15 years…NEVER did any of them ask for a degree or
116
a Coaching CERTIFICATE or whether I BLOGGED or
anything….they all had just one question,
And
It’s
The
Only
Question
Anyone
Will
Ever
Have
That
Matters.
And that question was this, “Can you help us?”
That is all anyone wants to know.
Q. I would dearly love to make $75,000 between now
and the end of the fiscal year. Any suggestions?
Yes! Put “$75,000” on the top of a white board or a
piece of paper and brainstorm with yourself and ask
yourself to list a minimum of 20 places that income
could come from.
117
Which companies will be open to a new dimension
to their work with you? Which individuals would you
love to serve? (You would serve only a few of these.)
Allow your creative self to create and create with
75K as the GAME. Find a partner to do this with. Do it
ALL DAY for a day. I promise you that you’ll get your
75 out of that day.
Q. I’ve had my eBook for sale online for a couple
weeks, and when I got back from vacation, I noticed
I’d only sold ten copies. Tiny amount! How do I
keep from being depressed about that?
It's not tiny, it's huge. Ten real live people. Ten lives.
Even while you relaxed on vacation, ten lives are
changed. It would only be “tiny” if you were comparing
it to someone. Like who? Stephen King?
Who to compare to? Why compare? When I
compare myself to others, I am out of serving and into
myself...into WINNING and MAKING A GOOD
IMPRESSION and BEING IMPRESSIVE ENOUGH
FOR PEOPLE (father figures and mother figures) TO
FINALLY GET WHO I AM! AND THAT I'M
VALUABLE and a WINNER!!!!!
But we could do life another way. We could be SO
grateful that the blood and tears and HEART that went
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into that book will now touch ten people...ten new
people. And these are real live people. And in case you
are still into comparing yourself, try this: most people,
in their whole lives, will never touch ten people this
way.
_____________________________________________
“If you had an hour to live and
could make only one call, who would you
call? What would you say? Why are you
waiting?”
– Stephen Levine
___________________________________________________
119
Ask someone for a client!
Ask someone for a referral this week. Ask an existing
client. I am making this dialogue up for you so you can
reject it and make your own BETTER script based on
YOU being YOU:
ME: Now that our coaching session is over, may I
ask for a few minutes of your time?
CLIENT: Yes. Of course! What’s on your mind.
ME: I have decided to add four more coaching
clients to my list in the next month or two, and it is very
important to me to be able to continue to build my
practice by referral. It keeps the quality of the clients and
the quality of their commitments at their highest level.
My request of you is that you think through your list of
friends and closest business associates…even
family…and think about who might benefit….and I
mean truly benefit from doing the kind of work that you
and I have been doing together. It would mean a lot to
me to receive a referral from you so that at least one of
my four new clients comes directly from you.
CLIENT: Yes, well sure.
ME: I do not cold call or FISH the public database
for clients, as you know, I don’t troll for work, it all
comes by referral. This work is too intimate to try to
explain to big lists of people…..and if you send
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someone to see me I promise you this: I will meet with
them for a good two hour intake session at no charge to
them as an explicit gift to them from you…..we will
accomplish a lot in that session and they are free to go
without employing me and I am happy to do that….that
will be their choice….that is something I will do to
honor you and your referral. Now…as I have been
talking about this, has anyone come to mind…have you
had anyone’s name pop into your head as someone who
would really profit from this kind of work?
CLIENT: Yes, two people….
ME: Good! Who are they?
CLIENT: One is my brother-in-law…he just started
a new business and he has actually asked me about you
and the work we do together...I know he’d be open….
ME: Would you be willing to share with him what
our work has been like for you and then invite him to
call me for an appointment?
Etc., etc., etc.
I have to tell you that the coaches I have given this
“CONCEPT” to in the past have been AMAZED that 1)
they never felt greedy or forward or pushy for
ASKING, and 2) how many clients they got from the
PROCESS. Note that it’s a process.
121
Q. How do I get the word out to more people?
Rather than reaching “more people,” what about
reaching one person? But really reaching that person in
a deep, profound and transformative way…so that his
or her world is altered by working with you. And then
move on to another person, and do the same with that
second individual.
Q. How do I develop faith and trust that I’ve made
the right decision going into this business?
As I’ve told you before, TRUST is a strain you put
on your system. You’ll get spiritual hemorrhoids by
such straining to try to TRUST things pertaining to
money.
When you go to sweep the sidewalk, do you say to
yourself, “Now I just have to TRUST that I can sweep
this sidewalk,” before you sweep it? NO. Because you
know you can sweep it. If you KNOW you can build a
prosperous client list at will, there is nothing left to try
to trust.
Our little hearts go pitty-pat when it comes to the big
dragon: money, and we all want a prince to rescue
us….we are damsels in distress when it comes to
money. So let your damsel mind drop away.
122
When you want to paint your room, you just go out
and get the number of buckets of paint that you need.
You don’t lose sleep over the paint. It’s just paint, and
you can always get more. Once you see money that
way, you are free. Once you see that growing your
practice with prosperity simply means deciding how
many buckets of money you want, and then just going
out and getting them, you are free.
We complicate that easy process with long-held
emotions about money and how we link it to personal
worthiness…which is incredibly creepy. It’s just paint.
Your practice is your room.
123
33) How to hit home runs
Here’s what the great coach Stephen McGhee tells the
business coaches and life coaches in his coaching
school when they ask him how he gets so MANY
clients gladly paying his $25,000 fee:
My “home runs” are believed inwardly first and then
the outward expression seems pretty grace-filled. Firstly,
I think all of us need to ask: What value do I provide in
my coaching/consulting? I mean really challenging that
question into existence. I believe that my work is literally
transformative. I believe that people I work with will peel
back layers and be born renewed from the conversations.
I am confident that transformation will take place. I am
as confident of that as I am the reality that 25K is a huge
bargain. For me, it does not come from my ego, but more
from my mental capital as well as my deeply grounded
belief that Spirit is doing the work in the coaching room.
I don’t ever think money is a viable reason to not get
coaching. EVER…There is a “reason” why a person feels
scarce. We are not scarce when we come onto this planet.
So, I simply talk to the abundant one in everyone. I
assume that if the person wants true change they will find
a way to commit financially.
I ask people: what do you want? If the answer that
they have is something I believe I can do for them, I tell
them. If they want something I don’t think I can deliver
on….I tell them that, too. I don’t want anything hanging
over me either.
Then I ask: What are you willing to do to have that?
This is where the conversation gets real. This is where as
124
a coach I will find out the inner state of my potential
client. Some will immediately make the connection.
Some will not. Either way it is fine. The truth is: if
someone cannot come up with the fee (or is not willing to
spend the fee) they are simply not ready to do the work
that is required from me as the coach. I only want to
work with people that on some level get their own
intrinsic value is exponentially greater than a coaching
fee. Now we as coaches get to assist in someone
remembering what they already knew at birth.
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If you've dreamed of a fearless life,
join the club.
I have put together a worldwide network of people
committed to personal freedom from fear and victim
thinking - and anyone and everyone can afford to be in
it. It is a mastermind for the world. An international
membership for people who are committed to being
successful and making a positive difference in the
world... not waiting around to see if it “happens” to
them.
It’s a club for people who want to express their
awesome and unlimited natures without waiting for
permission to do so.
It is called CLUB FEARLESS: World Mastermind.
It's for people more interested in immediately
AVAILABLE creative ACTION than alibis and victim
stories. We are owners or we are victims. And we
become one or the other through practice. We become
fearless, too, through practice. And my club will be a
126
place for people to be inspired to do their practice. This
club will rock, and it will circle the world.
CLUB FEARLESS is how we will deal with the
global changes. Things are changing dramatically. Sick
systems are getting cleaned out so that we can build
back stronger. Fat and rot are being blown from the
corridors of the financial complex. It scares people to
become this healthy this fast. Hold on! Let me languish
in the false sense of security I used to have!
But change is a good thing. It allows us to develop
self-reliance in an age of codependence. No longer do
we ride the bubble, or look for parental companies to
care for us. We grow.
And as Andrew Cohen said, “It seems to be the
human tendency to want to resist change, to want to
create the illusion of security in an insecure universe,
and to avoid at all costs facing into the awesome and
unlimited nature of life itself.”
Hard times allow us to see that we ourselves have
awesome and unlimited natures that we haven't even
begun to call upon.
People are asking me what the World Mastermind
Club Fearless is all about and it is about a spirit of
people STANDING BY each other, supporting each
other in being fearless and creating the courage to
127
change the things they can.....and they can.....and I
promise we will stand by you.......
Members will receive:
♦ Newly-released CD mailed out every month – new
audio CDs are available exclusively to Club Fearless
members.
♦ Monthly Live interactive teleseminar with Steve
Chandler – An audio CD of the teleseminar will be
mailed out to members.
♦ Weekly Email to inspire you and guide you on your
path to becoming fearless.
♦ A printed copy of the Personal DAILY
REINVENTION Journal, Steve's personal diary of
breakthrough writings, concepts, distinctions and tips
and guidelines for individual success and courageous
self-reliance....all the learnings and tricks of a master
coach's trade shared with members.
128
♦ A printed copy of Steve's monthly report, Who is
FEARLESS in the World? Timely reports of intriguing
acts of courage and creativity from around the world
gathered by Steve and commented on by him. This
monthly report will serve as a counterweight to the
mainstream media's focus on the most negative and
frightening stories they can find.
♦ An autographed copy of Steve's new book SHIFT
YOUR MIND: SHIFT THE WORLD will be SENT to
MEMBERS ONLY in April 2009 (the book will NOT
be in bookstores or sold on the Internet for a full year
after it is released to Club Fearless members!).
♦ Invitations to see Steve Chandler LIVE in person at
members-only events.
129
Join Club Fearless, $19/Month
Questions about Club Fearless?
Contact Maurice Bassett at (510) 292-4278 or
ReinventingYourself@gmail.com
130
Bonus Chapters from:
50 Ways to Create Great
Relationships:
Building Your Network
One Person at a Time
131
50 Ways to Create Great Relationships
Building Your Network
One Person at a Time
By
Steve Chandler
132
50 Ways to Create Great Relationships. Copyright ©
2000, 2004 by Steve Chandler. All rights reserved. No
part of this eBook may be reproduced or copied in any
form without permission from the publisher, Maurice
Bassett: Info@ReinventingYourself.com
ISBN 0-9760402-7-1
Published by Maurice Bassett Publishing
http://www.ReinventingYourself.com
Electronic Books by Steve Chandler
http://www.SteveChandler.com
Cover art by Cheryl Finbow
Text and cover art provided by The Career Press, Inc.
Technical or other questions may be directed to
Info@ReinventingYourself.com or 1-800-616-9498.
133
For Kathy
134
Acknowledgments
I want to thank: Steve Hardison for teaching me
everything I know that led to everything I wrote in this
book; Lyndon Duke for consultation on making a
difference; Fred Knipe for all the many transformative
suggestions; Kathryn Eimers for the elements of sense
and style; Bob Croft for producing an audience;
Nathaniel Branden for the psychology; Colin Wilson
for the philosophy; Lindsay Brady for the gift of
perception; Darlene Brady for the business sense; Jim
Brannigan for the representation; Ron Fry for Career
Press; Stacey A. Farkas for the expert editing; Leah Be
for introducing me to Lyndon; Scott Richardson for the
ongoing ideas and encouragement; Dennis Deaton for
playing Martin to my Lewis on the road; Dale Dauten
for the great columns and friendship; Michael Bassoff
for the relation-shift; Terry Hill for the letters from
France; Bill Eimers for making the introduction of the
century; Stephanie Chandler for working the Net; John
Shade for the best poem ever written; and Spider Hole
for the music.
And last but not least, a tremendous
acknowledgment to my dear Dr. Merlin F. Ludiker for
the gift of humor. (Ludiker, like Quixote or Pickwick,
ventures into fields he does not belong in. And his
innocence and enthusiasm for “faking his way in” are
characteristic of an inverse heroism that causes us to
135
laugh for joy. His attempts to look good are absurd, and
his attempts to cover his tracks elegantly reveal the
foolishness of our own lives wasted by trying to live up
to other people’s expectations.)
136
We will now discuss in a little more
detail the Struggle for Existence.
—Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
137
Contents
Introduction
10
1 Use the Element of Surprise
13
2 Turn Your Light On
16
3 Lose Your Self
20
4 Think as a Creator
23
5 Commit an Assault
26
6 Release Your Butterflies
28
7 Magnetize Yourself
31
8 Break Someone Up
32
9 Create a Friend
34
10 Give the Gift of Silence
38
11 Rise Above Yourself
40
12 Stop Changing Other People
43
13 Learn to Do Picasso’s Trick
47
14 Bring It With You When You Come
52
15 Be a Dream Hunter
54
16 Cure Your Intention Deficit Disorder
57
138
17 Satisfy a Deep Craving
60
18 Relax With Money
63
19 Think and Thank
66
20 Shift Your Gears
68
21 Use Your Best Weapon
71
22 Be a Servant
74
23 Astonish Someone
79
24 Throw Out a Safety Net
82
25 Climb Your Ladder
84
26 Be Your Commitment
88
27 Become a Problem
90
28 Lift People Up
94
29 Act the Part
96
30 Build the Love In
98
31 Do the Thing
99
32 Try to Understand
101
33 Don’t Take a Person Personally
104
34 Celebrate Your Independence
106
139
35 Make a Difference
110
36 Reveal Yourself
115
37 Take Your Time
118
38 Live Your Life Forward
123
39 Give It Away to Keep It
125
40 Think Skill
127
41 Eliminate Preoccupation
129
42 Eliminate Prejudice
131
43 Get Engaged
133
44 Listen Creatively
135
45 Just Be Straight
137
46 Jump Into Action
139
47 Turn Inside Out
141
48 Learn to Say No
146
49 Create Your Voice
150
50 Give from the Spirit
153
Index
156
140
Introduction
How to Handle a Woman
I remember as a boy going to New York City to see the
Broadway musical Camelot, and I remember Richard
Burton singing a song about the wisdom he, as King
Arthur, had received from Merlin, his wizard.
The song, by Rodgers and Hammerstein, was
called “How to Handle a Woman.” As a teenage boy I
had more than a passing interest in the subject, and I
was spellbound by the quiet, dramatic ballad. I
remember the song ending with the king singing that
the way to handle a woman was to “love her. Simply
love her. Merely love her.” I was young but I remember
that the formula sounded simple enough, and I don’t
know why I didn’t just adopt it right then and there for
all relationships in life, because it would have saved me
a lot of unnecessary trouble.
It took me many years after seeing that play to get
that formula back, but when I did, powerful things
began to happen.
As I grew older and began to make my living
teaching seminars, I realized that almost all of us forget
to use this effective process. We end up having
difficulty in even the simplest relationships because we
do not use it.
141
For “how to handle a woman” is also how to
handle a teenage son and how to handle a customer and
how to handle a business partner and, finally, how to
handle any relationship.
But where we often seem to go wrong is in
misunderstanding the mechanics of love itself. Because
we associate love with feelings and because we
associate the absence of love with feelings, we turn the
whole idea of relationships into a “feelings” thing. Even
(and especially) in the workplace. And that is our first
mistake.
Because love is not a feeling. Love is a creation,
and, therefore, love comes from the spirit. It comes
from the highest part of every human being and it asks
that we access our greatest powers of imagination. As
writer Emmet Fox says, “Love is always creative and
fear is always destructive.”
Recently I received a letter from a man in Japan
who had purchased audiotapes of a relationship seminar
I’d given years ago. One particular image intrigued
him:
“Boy, I loved it when you used the dead fish as an
example. It’s so true! All a dead fish can do is react.
If you put a dead fish in the stream it just reacts to
everything, every rock, every branch, every flow of
water. Dead things react. Like you said: Live fish
don’t react, they create. They create a path through
142
the water or stream depending on where they want to
go. That’s so great. Reacting is done by dead things.
If we just react to other people all day we...are dead
already. We’re a dead thing responding to the life of
the other person.”
The solution to the problem is so easy and gentle:
You can change everything when you make it your
gentle practice to create rather than react.
The 50 ways to create relationships all come from
my workshops and seminars on the same subject. These
are easy thinking tools that have worked well for
average people like me. Through the process of trial
and error I have saved the 50 mental concepts that work
the fastest and easiest and put them in this book.
Each of these thinking tools asks us to be creative
just a little beyond the norm. Each one requires a
certain awakening of the artist that lives in all of us. But
to awaken that artist within is to learn how to feel joy
again—in business and in life.
143
Useful though pessimism is,
it can’t cover it all.
—Tibor Fischer, The Thought Gang
144
Chapter 1
Use the Element of Surprise
Experiments never fail.
—Dale Dauten
The Max Strategy
The element of surprise is a notorious military strategic
advantage, and it’s an even greater advantage in
relationships.
Think back throughout your life. What are the
best gifts you have ever gotten? What do they have in
common?
Some people guess that it’s the gift of time, or the
gift of something handmade, or the gift of compassion,
the gift of listening, the gift of service; the guessing
goes on. But many people rarely see it—the best kind
of gift anyone ever gets is the unexpected gift, the one
they never dreamed they’d get.
There’s nothing better in life than a pleasant
surprise.
I
remember
G.
K.
Chesterton’s
characterization of a spiritual experience as the one in
which you get an unexpected feeling of “absurd good
news.”
145
When cancer research fund-raiser Mike Bassoff
began to realize this, he instituted a program with his
staff called “Innovative Thank you’s.” He realized that
an expected thank you was practically worthless to his
cause, because it is instantly forgotten. But a thank you
that was unexpected would be remembered forever. So
his team constantly experimented with thanking people
in ways they didn’t expect.
Mrs. Harvey Johnson lived in Omaha, Neb., and
had lost her son a number of years prior to lymphoma.
She was terribly depressed at the time as only someone
who has lost a child can understand. Years later, she
told the story of her son’s death to Michael Bassoff, and
he listened. Soon after the conversation, she donated
$50,000, which was used to buy new laboratory
equipment for doctors experimenting in lymphoma
research. A year later, those same doctors had achieved
a breakthrough in experiments they were doing on the
blood of lymphoma patients.
Whereas most fundraisers would have given Mrs.
Johnson a pen and pencil set or a wall plaque to thank
her for her donation, Bassoff arranged for her name to
get prominent mention in an article in the obscure
hematology journal, Blood. The journal recounted the
experimental breakthroughs made by the doctors.
When the magazine came out, Bassoff traveled to
Omaha unannounced to present Mrs. Johnson with
copies.
146
“I’m going to be honest with you Mrs. Johnson,”
Bassoff said, as the surprised woman invited him into
her living room, “This isn’t going to make you famous
because no one reads this journal but hematologists.
But there are, quite frankly, eight people who are
walking around today who wouldn’t be alive if it
weren’t for you.”
Bassoff handed the stunned woman the journal
and pointed to her name, saying, “You’ve done
something very important as a way of honoring the
memory of your son.”
Traveling to the unknown
Access to creativity in relationships is right there
in the unexpected. All you have to ask is: “What does
this person expect right now?”, and then go one or two
steps further into the unexpected.
I’ll never forget the one Saturday morning my
college roommate was rustling around and I woke up to
see him putting on a tuxedo.
“Are you going somewhere special?” I asked him
while rising up on one elbow in my bunk bed.
“Not really. Just over to Heather’s apartment.”
“Well, would I be out of line to ask you why that
would require a tuxedo?”
“It’s her birthday today.”
147
“Okay. Fine. Are you taking her someplace really
special?”
“No. I don’t even have a date with her. We’ve sort
of been having problems. We have kind of been split up
for a while. I just wanted to take her a rose and a card
and wish her a happy birthday.”
“So you’re wearing a tuxedo for that?”
“Right.”
“Why are you doing that?”
“I want her to know that she’s still means a lot to
me, and I honor the day she was born. That’s what I’m
going to tell her, and then I’ll give her the rose and the
card and leave. Because we’re not really together right
now.”
I went back to sleep thinking he was insane and I
didn’t give it another thought until a couple months
later when I asked him how he and Heather were doing
and he told me they were engaged to be married.
148
Chapter 2
Turn Your Light On
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine.
American folk song
I have a friend who, compared to me, has always
seemed to have it together.
He’s always been extremely well-organized with
his time. A number of years ago when my own life was
chaotic and out of control, I went to visit him to ask his
advice on how to get myself organized like he was.
We sat down in this living room, which doubled
as an office. He showed me his daily planner in which
he had a simple list of tasks on this day’s page. He
showed me how he worked on one item at a time,
according to its priority, until the list was finished. As I
glanced over his list, I noticed something strange. At
the bottom of his list, there was something written in a
foreign language. It looked like Arabic or something. I
asked him what it was.
“Oh, that’s code—that’s code for my wife’s
name.”
“Why do you have that there?” I asked him.
149
“Because if she happens upon my notebook
sometime during the day, I don’t want her to see her
name under the heading of ‘Tasks.’ That’s why I put it
in code.”
I told him I understood, then I asked him why he
had put her name there this day.
“Oh, it’s there every day.”
“Every day?”
“Every day.”
“Well, what’s that about?”
“Every day I do something for her. Some days I
don’t have much time, so I do something that might just
take a minute or two—maybe I leave her a nice voice
mail message at her office saying that I look forward to
seeing her that night. Other days, when I have more
time, I do more for her—a nice surprise.”
“Every day?”
“Every day.”
I told him I thought I got the picture, but I still
didn’t understand why he did this every day.
“Because,” he said, “in my previous marriage—
the one that didn’t work out—I left everything to
chance. I left everything to how I was feeling. I always
thought relationships were about feelings, so I waited
150
until I felt like doing something nice for my wife. I
waited until I felt like telling her I appreciated her. The
only problem was that when I felt like it, she often
wasn’t there, and when she was there, I often didn’t feel
like it. I let myself live in total bondage to my feelings,
and the relationship got worse and worse.”
“What’s different now?” I asked.
“Just me,” he said. “In this relationship I decided
to do things differently. I decided not to leave this one
to chance. I decided that this relationship was very
important to me, so I was going to make sure I treated it
like it was.”
I asked him if it wasn’t a little fanatical to do it
this way, where he would do something every day and
have it be on his task list.
“I think it’s worth it,” he said. “There’s never any
doubt in her mind about how I feel about her. That’s
worth it to me. That’s worth the two minutes I put into
it. If you have 24 hours to live in a day, and you have a
relationship that’s the most important thing in the world
to you, don’t you think a couple of minutes put into it is
rational?”
I had to admit he had a good point. And his key
word was “rational.” He created a great relationship
with his wife because he made it his rational and
conscious intention to do so. He kept his level of
consciousness up. He turned the light on.
151
We can consciously create the relationships in life
that we want, or we can unconsciously follow our
feelings. Our popular culture always promotes the
unconscious way: Just follow your heart. Just trust your
feelings. But that kind of blind romanticism always
seems to backfire.
In the end, how we are in a relationship is a
choice. One choice (higher consciousness) leads to a
happy life, and the other choice leads to the ongoing
black magic of human mood swings.
How conscious are we willing to be of the choice?
How to bring the light
Relationships always get better when we raise our
level of consciousness. Conversely, relationships
always get worse when we lower our level of
consciousness. I owe a great indebtedness for this
fundamental principle to Nathaniel Branden, whose
books on the human mind are, in my opinion, the best
written contribution ever made to the art of consciously
happy living.
Try to think back to when you first learned to
drive a car. Most people can remember the exact car in
which they learned how to drive—the way it looked
and felt, even though it was many years ago. Why is
that? It’s the same reason why most of us, who are old
enough, can remember exactly where we were (where
we were sitting, how we found out, everything) when
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we heard that President John F. Kennedy was shot.
Why is that?
Think, too, of when you learned that a family
member had died. I remember hearing the news of my
father’s death from my brother. I remember where I
was standing with the phone in my hand, in which
room, the expressions on my children’s faces when they
saw mine, and it is a terrible, staggering memory frozen
forever in my brain, every last detail of it as
unbelievable today as it was then.
This kind of perfect memory occurs because our
level of consciousness is so high when we experience
these episodes that our entire mind is engaged.
The mind is like a mansion at night. When we
want to, we can instantly turn on all the lights. There is
no preoccupation and no distraction. There is just pure
and complete light.
When we were first learning to drive a car, the
same thing was happening—total, lit-up focus of the
human mind. It’s the kind of focus you can take to a
relationship any time. Just bring it, like a pitcher brings
his best pitch. It takes a little practice. But so does
pitching.
Imagine, again, yourself first learning to drive.
You’re completely present to the experience—the feel
of the wheel in your hands, the exciting and almost
dangerous sense of the other cars rushing past. Now
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imagine what would have happened if someone sat next
to you in the car and started chatting with you. What if
he or she started gossiping about someone while you
were trying to drive? You probably would have said,
“Hey, please, not now, I’m driving.”
Now, think of how you drive a car today. If you
are like most people, you can drive using very small
amounts of consciousness. Only one room in the
mansion is lit for driving. You can listen to the radio,
talk to friends, yell at other drivers, even talk on the
phone. There is no longer pure focus on the act of
driving.
The same thing is true when we first learn how to
type. We begin by sitting at the keyboard completely
engrossed, learning to type. Weeks later, a friend can
come up and talk to us and we can talk and type and
laugh all at the same time.
This is the reason: When we human beings learn
something, when we master something, like driving, or
typing, or anything, we proceed to automate it. We
make it unconscious and automatic. We turn it over to
the robot inside so we can do the task while we’re
thinking of a hundred other things.
The problem is, we also do this with relationships.
We lose focus. Once we develop a fairly safe and easy
way to be with a person, we automate it. Soon it
becomes how we are forever. We continue our
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relationships at a very low level of consciousness and
then we wonder why they lose their appeal.
Relationships always get better when we raise our
level of consciousness, and turn on the light.
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Chapter 3
Lose Your Self
Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face.
—John Updike
I don’t know if I can think of anything more damaging
to happy relationships than the very idea of personality.
More cowardice is forgiven in the name of “I’ve
got to be me,” or “That’s just the way I am” than with
any other misguided ideas. Much too early in life we
decide that we have a certain personality, and then we
climb inside it to hide.
Great relationship builders are willing to
continuously grow and change their personalities in
order to make and keep new commitments.
People who struggle unsuccessfully with
relationships are willing to abandon any commitment,
break any promise, break any vow, in order to keep
their personalities.
Personality is a damaging myth. It’s just not true
that you’re stuck with who you are. You can be
whomever you think you need to be. It all starts with
your commitment.
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I once had a friend who gave self-esteem
workshops for a living. She lived in a small town in
California. More and more often, big companies were
bringing her to the big cities because she had a nice
way of firing people up.
I’ll never forget, though, the day she confided in
me that she was terrified. Her worst fear was that
someone in the audience would challenge her facts or
theories and reveal her to be a fraud. She said she was
curious about me for not having the same fear. She
wondered why I wasn’t afraid that someone who knew
more than I did would reveal my lack of expertise.
“That’s because I’m making it obvious that I’m
already a fraud,” I said. “I’m not trying to be an expert
or an authority on anything other than my own life. If
someone in the audience had better facts or theories I’d
welcome them up to the stage to share them with
everybody. I am not trying to be an expert on anything
but my own personal experiences.”
“I would be afraid to do that,” she said. “I don’t
want them to think that that’s all I have to offer.”
“That’s all anybody has to offer,” I said. “And
besides, what do you care what they think?”
“I make my living on what people think of me!”
she practically shouted.
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“Well, then, that’s why you’re miserable,” I said.
“That’s why you’re living in fear. You should try to do
without that idea. Because the truth is you’re making a
living on the difference you make, not on what people
think.”
“I’m terrified,” she said. “I’m terrified that unless
I use facts and figures and studies, they won’t want to
listen to me.”
I could see that her fear was running her life. It
was even running her career. She was obsessed with her
reputation, and that’s always a deadly blind alley to
wander into. I knew her feelings because I used to feel
them myself before I turned too in as a non-authority
figure.
The tomb of personality
I can spend my life trying to control my
reputation—trying to control what other people think of
me—but the problem is that when I turn my control to
what other people think, I, myself, go out of control.
Living my life this way is, in the novelist Richard
Brautigan’s words, “Like trying to shovel mercury with
a pitchfork.” Or like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.
And so we face the inevitable paradox of good
relationships: less is always more. The less I try to get
you to like me, the more you like me. If I focus instead
on my own small acts of difference-making, then my
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reputation will take care of itself. It won’t be my
anxious concern; it will be my pleasant surprise.
There is a bumper sticker that says: “Practice
random acts of kindness.” And it’s such a good idea to
do this! For our own good. And they don’t have to be so
random either. “Random” is used in the slogan because
it gives it a poetic contrast to the more widely used
media term: practicing random acts of violence.
You can plan out your acts of kindness. Acts of
kindness don’t depend on who you are, or who you’ve
said your personality is. They actually create who you
are. The acts come first and the personality comes
second. Always. Yet most people live in reverse order,
prisoners to their perceived selves.
Recently, I met with a musician who I was
considering hiring to perform at a large event. In our
talk over breakfast we found that we shared a love for
much of the same music. As we talked further, I found
that there was an old Harry Nilsson album he had not
yet heard. I told him how great I thought it was. On my
way home, I bought a copy of the CD A Little Touch of
Schmilsson in the Night for him and mailed it out with a
note thanking him for his time at breakfast. I did not do
this because there is something especially nice or good
about me. I did it because I saw it as an opportunity to
perform an act of kindness. And it took virtually no
effort at all.
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I’ve found that the more of these random acts I
do, the better my life gets. These are things I never used
to do. But as I studied relationship-building, I began to
see the power of it. And I didn’t have to wait until
something changed in my personality to start doing
things like this. I didn’t have to wait until it was “in my
nature” to do it. I just realized that doing it was “a way
of being” that I was willing to experiment with, and so
the point was to simply do it. Doing it is all that
matters.
Through these experiments, I was able to lose my
“self.” I was able to realize that who I am is not who I
am. Who I am is what I do.
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Chapter 4
Think as a Creator
Imagination should be used not to escape from
reality, but to create it.
—Colin Wilson
In relationships, there are two kinds of people: creators
and reactors. Creators create relationships. Reactors
react to other people.
Creators know how to use the most complete and
most human parts of the brain. And in doing so, they
engage their imaginations. Reactors, on the other hand,
use the lowest, most marginal animal section of the
brain. They just react emotionally to other people.
Animals react all day. That’s all their brains can
do. If I look at my dog as he’s lying by the fire, it never
occurs to me to say, “He’s thinking about the future.
He’s planning out his next week.”
Because animals can’t do that. They are simply
stimulus-response beings. They just respond to what
stimulates them at that moment. The smell of food. The
sight of the owner coming up the walk. Their brains are
like mirrors that just reflect the outer environment of
stimuli.
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They often do it in such a charming way that we
assign them all kinds of human characteristics, but the
one characteristic we cannot assign is the ability to
create the future.
Once we start studying people who struggle with
relationships we see that they are almost always trying
to operate by using this low-energy, animal portion of
their brains. They fall into the same stimulus-response
habit that animals have no choice about. They have
learned to get by on their least active brain section, and
they just react and respond all day. Rather than creating
the relationships they want, they react to other people.
It seems to work for them. It is a way of living
that is rarely challenged. But deep down they know
something’s wrong. It’s as if they were driving their
cars around in a low gear and never shifting. They
eventually get where they’re going, but it never feels
quite right.
Shifting is what makes everything smooth again.
Shifting is what takes a person up into higher and
higher gears of creativity in relationship-building.
To shift up, you just breathe in and expand your
vision. Soon your whole brain is filled with the picture.
It’s a picture of the relationship you want.
Follow the sword master
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I knew a woman named Mary Anne who worked
in a seafood restaurant that specialized in bluefish and
lobsters. Mary Anne was devoting most of her freethinking time to wondering why her manager was such
an idiot. When she came home at night she talked for
hours with her husband about it. Her husband suggested
many things, but Mary Anne didn’t want to hear them.
She was becoming addicted to being a victim. Addicted
to reacting.
One day Mary Anne was browsing through a
book of quotations that her sister had sent her and she
came across a quote from an ancient Japanese sword
master.
She said to me, “When I first saw the word sword
I thought I’d like to take a sword to work with me and
see if I could get my manager to take me more
seriously.”
But then she read that the sword master’s
recommended formula for winning the battles of life
was to “enter into your enemy’s heart and become one
with your enemy so that your enemy is no longer your
enemy.”
“It’s funny how that one little idea seemed to light
me right up,” she said many months later. “I just
decided right there to enter my manager’s heart,
whatever that would take, and that entering her heart
would be my new pet project at work. It was interesting
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what happened. I had coffee with her every day. I
learned about her personal life. I helped her with some
problems she was having with her son. I just made her
heart my heart. I never had a problem with her again.
My husband was shocked when I announced one night,
after he had asked about her, that she was doing great
and that I was enjoying working with her.”
Mary Anne had, in one instant, become a creator.
Creators are people in the habit of shifting upward
whenever they start to feel down. Even before
communicating with another person, they imagine the
best relationship they can imagine. And then future
conversations are all influenced by that image.
Reactors do the opposite. There is no vision at all
until the other person appears, and then the reacting
begins. The emotions kick in, and anxious moments
follow: What if I don’t get what I want? What if this
person doesn’t appreciate me?
The habit of reacting doesn’t always feel like a
habit. It often feels like a normal spontaneous response
to reality. But it is a habit, and it’s a habit that appears
by default. Just like a neglected garden turns to weeds,
a neglected mind turns to reacting. Reacting happens by
itself when we’re not generating a vision. If we don’t
choose to create, we cannot help but react.
Therefore, the first step in good relationshipbuilding is knowing about that choice to shift. Being
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aware of the choice. I can shift up to my imagination at
any time. Repetition of this awareness is like living
with an on/off switch suspended in the air in front of
me. The upside of the switch says “create” (the “on”
option). The downside of the switch says “react” (the
“off” option). That’s why people who simply react to
other people all the time can’t help feeling turned off by
life. That’s also why people who create are always
feeling turned on by life.
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Chapter 5
Commit an Assault
Thinking is the hardest work we ever do,
which is why so few of us ever do it.
—Henry Ford
Sometimes the most obvious idea is the one that stays
hidden the longest. It’s a shame when that happens
between two people who are having a hard time with
each other, but it does.
One such simple idea is this: Thinking solves
problems. Or as Voltaire said, “No problem can
withstand the assault of sustained thinking.”
This is especially true of relationship problems.
If the problem is one with your car or with your
house, you quite naturally apply sustained thinking until
the problem is solved. You do that out of habit, and
because you know it works.
However, if you’re like most people, when the
problem is about a relationship, you don’t do the same
thing. You don’t sustain your thinking, because the
minute you begin, feelings seem to take over, and a
voice inside says, “I don’t want to think about it.”
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That’s why counselors and consultants do such a
great business in the area of people problems. They
don’t feel anything about those problems. All they do is
listen carefully to their emotionally charged clients, and
then apply sustained thinking. They have no emotional
involvement with the problem, so they never hear the
inner voice that tells them not to think about it. They
are prepared to think about it until the cows come
home. And that kind of sustained thinking will always
solve a problem.
The people who actually have the problem are so
emotionally wired up, they’re no longer rational. A
consultant can come in and help solve things quickly. Is
it because the consultant is smarter than the client? No.
The consultant has a different advantage. The
consultant can painlessly think about it forever.
That’s why it’s so valuable to create an inner
consultant’s voice for yourself. An inner therapist.
Someone you make up inside you who can give you the
distance you need from your problem so that you can
think about it. It helps to get this process going by
asking yourself, “What if this were someone else’s
problem? What would I advise them to do?” Creating
that distance allows thinking to occur.
A final method you’ll enjoy using when you have
a problem is to brainstorm with yourself. Take out a
piece of paper and number it from one to 10 and then
ask yourself: “What are 10 ways I could solve this
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problem?” Don’t leave the room until you’ve written
ten things down, no matter how weird some of them
are. It will almost never fail to give you the problemsolving idea you need because it is an exercise that
manipulates you into thinking. No problem can
withstand the assault of sustained thinking.
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Chapter 6
Release Your Butterflies
For of all sad words of tongues or pen
the saddest are these: It might have been.
—John Greenleaf Whittier
In many of my public seminars, I’ll begin the day by
asking people to get up from their seats and go around
the room and introduce themselves to as many people
as they can in 90 seconds. We make a game out of it.
There’s happy chaos that ensues, although the
exercise usually begins with some tense, timid
beginning moments. But once the momentum gets
going, you can’t sit people down. They’re going all
around the room laughing and shaking hands.
Most people, including me, hate exercises like
this.
At least at the beginning. Because these kinds of
exercises feel artificial and corny. Here we go with the
woo-woo touchy-feely, I say to myself. I roll my eyes.
I’m too cool for this kind of thing. But once I start to do
it, I am having fun and feeling great. I have crossed
some kind of invisible line. If I could only keep that
invisible line in mind, that’s where all great
relationships happen. On the other side of that line.
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The first day of my own kindergarten experience
in New Jersey I remember playing a similar game
called In-And-Out-The-Windows. We began as shy
kids who didn’t know each other. But soon the dancing
and singing and locking arms with our partners to go
under and through the “windows” made by other
partners brought all of us together instantly. By the end
of the game, all the kids had run together, locked arms,
laughed, and danced. There was no problem building
relationships there. We had relationships right away.
These two exercises illustrate a vital point in
relationship-building. It’s a point about risk. Without a
willingness to risk, there can be no happiness in
relationships.
Now I think back on the hand-shaking exercise.
When I first began introducing myself to people in the
room, I felt self-conscious. What if I’m rejected? What
if I’m bothering people? What if I look like a selfconscious person? What if someone doesn’t take my
hand?
But once the momentum gets going, it becomes
fun, even joyful. People are happy to shake my hand
and I realize that they had the same fears that I did. In
very small ways, we were all taking a risk.
When I made my first audiobook a few years ago,
I decided to take another kind of risk. Rather than give
a hyped-up super-motivated reading of the book, I gave
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a deliberately laid-back, soft-voiced conversational
read. The kind I used to hear when I was young
listening to all-night jazz stations in Detroit. The DJs
soft and mellow. I wanted people to be able to listen to
my tapes over and over without getting stressed out. I
didn’t want to sound like a former Ritalin baby, like so
many of today’s personal power motivators sound. I
was also modeling myself after the best of the earlier
Wayne Dyer tapes on which he spoke so softly and
calmly. But I may have gone too far.
One reviewer titled his review of the audiobook,
“Wake Me When It’s Over.” The Library Journal
wrote: “Chandler’s narration is soothing, which may
inspire some and put others to sleep.” Other reviewers
also had similar problems with the tape: “This guy
sounds like Garfield the Cat.” “Do not drive a car or
operate heavy machinery when you are listening to this
tape.”
“I guess the book is always better than the tape.”
Yet the tape has sold extremely well. And when I
asked the president of the audiobook company if I
could please re-record it, he refused, citing the longlasting sales history of the product.
He doesn’t care how bad it sounds as long as it
sells.
I know that there are a lot of people who will
probably never buy another tape of mine again after
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having heard that one. That was the risk in reading it
that way. But I also know of a lot of people who have
thanked me for not shouting at them. That was the
benefit.
Psychologist Dr. David Viscott wrote an entire
book on the importance of risking. He established the
very direct link between willingness to risk and human
happiness. “If you cannot risk,” he concluded, “You
cannot grow. If you cannot grow, you cannot become
your best. If you cannot become your best, you cannot
be happy. If you cannot be happy, what else matters?”
If we go through our lives without ever feeling
butterflies in our stomachs, then we are suffering from a
kind of death by comfort zone.
In our attempt to be safe and comfortable, we’re
isolating ourselves from the source of all happiness—
personal growth. Every unknown person’s hand I shake
represents a small risk. But I need to consciously make
sure I’m risking every day, or my relationships will die.
The great thing about risking is that we can begin
with small risks. A compliment that I wasn’t going to
give you, I give. A thank you note I wasn’t going to
write, I write. A warm hug I wasn’t going to give, I
give. A new manager at work I wasn’t going to talk to, I
talk to. Every small risk expands my concept of who I
am. As I grow in my own concept, I start taking larger
risks. Soon the whole world is opening up to me and
my requests. My comfort zone is a thing of the past. My
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butterflies haven’t left me when I risk, but they’ve
become wings on which I can fly.
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Chapter 7
Magnetize Yourself
People talking without speaking,
People listening without hearing.
—Paul Simon
Listening is the most powerful part of a relationship.
Listening is what we value the most in other
people. Listening is what turns other people into friends
for life.
Listening is much more powerful than talking.
Talking is always overrated. (When was the last time
you heard someone say, “Hey, let’s ask Megan to come
on this picnic with us. She talks all the time.”)
Listening is what we value most in all our
relationships.
The great writer Brenda Ueland once wrote a
short passage about listening that I’ve always read
aloud in my workshops because it expresses it better
than anything I’ve ever thought to say myself:
I want to write about the great and powerful thing
that listening is and how we forget it, and how we
don’t listen to our children or those we love, and
least of all, which is so important, to those we do not
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love. But we should, because listening is a magnetic
and strange thing. A creative force. You can see that
when you think of how the friends who really listen
to us are the ones we move toward and we want to
sit in their radius as though it did us good, like
sunshine. This is the reason. When we are listened
to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas
actually begin to grow within us and come to life.
The next time you’re with someone you care
about, magnetize yourself. Allow all her words to be
drawn into you. Take her thoughts down deep into the
deepest parts of you that you’re willing to open up.
Become enchanted and spellbound by the music of the
human voice speaking to you. Notice everything.
Silently feel it, touch it, and see it. And watch what
happens to your relationship with that person.
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Chapter 8
Break Someone Up
If I had no sense of humor,
I should long ago have committed suicide.
—Mahatma Gandhi
When two people are laughing together, they don’t
need any systems for how to create a relationship. The
relationship is already, in that brief moment, as good as
a relationship can get.
When Victor Borge said, “The shortest distance
between two people is a laugh,” he was describing an
instant relationship.
Humor is something we often forget about as we
go through the day communicating with other people.
In fact, many of us have a belief that work has to be
separate from fun. Work has to be grim and serious. So
we white-knuckle it through our daily existence. We’re
hoping, I suppose, that maybe in the hereafter we will
be able to lighten up a little. Fly around and share a
laugh.
So we miss the opportunity that is always there to
lighten up and fly around right now. To experience a
little bit of heaven right here on earth.
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As the great NFL quarterback Fran Tarkenton
used to say, “Whatever you’re doing, if it isn’t fun,
you’re not doing it right.”
This is especially true of creating relationships. If
creating them isn’t fun, they can always be created
differently.
There is an elderly man that I see at the local post
office almost every day. He looks to be in his 80s. And
either he and I have similar schedules, or he hangs out
at the post office all the time, because I almost always
see him when I go there. The most remarkable thing
about this man is that he always tells me a joke. As I’m
walking to my car, he asks me if I’ve heard why “six is
afraid of seven?” “No,” I always say to his questions, so
he can tell me the answer: “because seven ate nine.”
At first I used to dread seeing him coming at me. I
knew a new joke would be presented to me, and I
would have to force my first smile of the day, whether I
felt like it or not. But soon his jokes, all of which were
so innocent and corny, began to have their affect on me,
and now I can’t even see him without starting to laugh.
I actually look forward to seeing him when I go to the
post office. One day recently as I was driving through
town I saw him walking rapidly across an empty lot
with a huge sack over his back. Is he homeless? I
wondered. But as I saw how fast he was walking, with
obvious purpose to get somewhere important, I began
laughing in my car. All his jokes came back to me at
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once, and I couldn’t stop laughing. It suddenly occurred
to me that this absurd old man, this man who may have
nothing at all, just might be the biggest differencemaker on the planet.
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Chapter 9
Create a Friend
To make a friend, be one.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sometimes my relationship seminar gets criticized.
People fill out evaluation forms at the end of the
relationship seminar I give, and when negative
evaluations come through, company managers show
them to me with raised eyebrows.
“We wanted you to see this,” they say.
I look at the evaluation sheet and the criticism
says the person couldn’t relate the course to business
life.
“Excellent,” I say.
“What do you mean excellent?” they ask. “We
pay a fortune for this class and you think it’s excellent
that they can’t even relate it to their work day?”
“Oh, they’re just saying that,” I say. “But you and
I both know that how you relate to people is how you
relate to people. There is no separation. The skills are
exactly the same.”
“They are?”
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“They are. As someone once said: “How you do
anything is how you do everything.”
“Who said that?”
“A Zen writer…”
“That’s what we’re worried about!”
“…who Phil Jackson admires.”
And then they’re quiet again. The someone who
once said that is Cheri Huber, a writer admired by many
people, including Phil Jackson, a basketball coach who
has had huge success by not separating basketball from
life. Because Phil Jackson believes that how you do
anything is how you do everything. Therefore, Phil
Jackson coaches the whole life of the whole person, not
just the basketball skills.
People who fail in business are people who try to
keep their business lives entirely separate from their
personal relationship skills. They are people who put
everything into airtight categories and have
compartmentalized their lives so much that they no
longer know where to find themselves. Which box are
they now sealed off in?
This death by artificial separation becomes irony
in the work place. For example, when working one-onone with someone who is having a difficult relationship
problem at work I can always help him or her solve it
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by removing the compartmentalization. I remove the
artificial separation simply by asking, “If this were a
friend of yours what would you do?”
Recently a company president was having
difficulty with his chairman of the board. He was
anguishing over what to do about it.
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” he told me.
“I don’t know how to approach him on this. I want to
take this company in one direction but he wants us to
stay the course. I have no idea how to get my ideas
through to him any more.”
“Are you willing to try something?” I asked.
“What is it?”
“Are you willing to listen?” I asked. “Even if
what I ask seems really simple?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, then I want you to imagine the best and
closest friend you ever had. Maybe someone you knew
growing up. Your best pal. Can you picture him?”
“Okay. I’ve got someone in mind.”
“Now imagine that you had these same business
problems with that friend. Can you picture that?”
“Yes.”
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“Now tell me what you would do. By the way,
what is your friend’s name?”
“Tom.”
“Okay, what would you do if this were Tom?
How would you approach Tom with this problem?”
“Oh, that would be easy! I’d say, ‘Tom, you and I
need to block out a whole bunch of time because we’re
going to work something out. What are you doing
tonight? How about an early dinner and leave open the
whole night until sunrise if necessary. I’m getting us a
suite at a resort. We’ll do this in style, but by the time
the sun comes up tomorrow, we’ll have a new
agreement with each other.’”
“How would you feel about doing that?”
“I’d look forward to it.”
“Why?”
“Because there wouldn’t be any pressure. It would
just be me and Tom, just like old times, off together
with no pressure. We could loosen up and not have to
act business-like. We’d have the whole night to get to
the point. We’d have fun.”
“All right,” I said. “So if that’s what you would
do if you had this problem with your best friend, then
that’s what I want you to do with your chairman of the
board. Can you picture it? Can you do exactly that?”
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After some resistance, he agreed.
“Just make him your best friend for a night.
Because I promise you that it works. How you are with
your best friend is the best ‘you’ there is. Don’t be
stingy with that ‘you.’ Give it out to people more often.
Watch what happens. Look at the kind of agreement
you’ll get.”
I saw him a week later and he was elated. He
couldn’t thank me enough. He said that my idea had
worked “miracles.”
“It wasn’t my idea,” I said. “It was your idea.”
If we would use this best friend system whenever
we are stumped in a relationship, huge doors would
open up. That’s what happens when we stop artificially
isolating ourselves. When we’re willing to take our best
friendship skills to the workplace, miracles happen.
How would I heal the rift if this were my best friend?
What kind of communication would make my friend
happy?
And that’s why it’s good to get as personal as
possible in relationship seminars. People tend to learn
ideas faster when they relate them to their personal
lives.
The reason companies keep using the seminar
even though I don’t relate much of it to the job is
because people get better on the job after the seminar
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because they’ve applied it to their personal lives. How
we relate to people is how we relate to people. Look at
a videotape of how someone treats his family members
and you’ll see how he treats customers. All of life is
interconnected. How we relate is how we relate. Let
things break down at work, and things will break down
at home. The reverse is also true. Improve things at
home, and all relationships improve accordingly.
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Chapter 10
Give the Gift
of Silence
The single most important principle I have
learned in the field of interpersonal relations is:
seek first to understand, then to be understood.
—Stephen R. Covey
There is a gift that I can give others that almost never
occurs to me to give: the gift of silence.
This was taught to me by Steve Hardison. He is a
personal coach who has coached professional athletes
and business leaders, and, fortunately for my life, he
has coached me.
Steve Hardison is as good a listener as I have ever
been with. Half of his effectiveness in coaching comes
from his ability to really tune in to what people are
saying. When I am with him I sometimes feel my entire
mind light up, like a big city at night.
Steve coaches his clients to respect silence. He
recommends that you have certain meetings with
important people when all you do is bring silence. Let
them do the talking. Let them do the thinking. Let them
really open up and say what they always wanted to say
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but were too intimidated by another’s clever words to
say.
Steve Hardison describes it this way: “When I am
silent, the purity of self speaks to me, guides me,
nudges me. When I am silent, I hear the purity of
another’s self. It also speaks to me, guides me, and
nudges me. Through silence, I am learning and being
taught things I never heard before. In essence, I am
discovering that silence is a symphony of selves.”
If I am on my way home from work and I know
Margery, my teenage daughter, is going to be there, I
don’t have to have any special agenda in my mind. My
intention can be silence. I can decide that I will not fix
her, teach her, correct her, shame her, improve her, or
advise her tonight.
Tonight, I will be silent. She can talk and talk, and
I will be happy in my silence. I will ask questions and I
will give affirmations of what she says, but other than
that, I will be silent. Silence is a gift we rarely
remember to bring.
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Bonus Chapters from:
Fearless:
Creating the Courage to
Change the Things You Can
187
Fearless
STEVE CHANDLER
Creating the Courage to
Change the Things You Can
188
Fearless: Creating the Courage to Change the Things You
Can. Copyright © 2008 by Steve Chandler. All rights reserved.
No part of this eBook may be reproduced or copied in any form
without permission from the publisher, Maurice Bassett:
ReinventingYourself@gmail.com
ISBN 1-60025-027-0
ISBN (13 digit) 978-1-60025-027-9
Published by Maurice Bassett
http://www.ReinventingYourself.com
Steve Chandler
http://www.SteveChandler.com
Cover art by SeeSaw Designs
To learn how to shift the mind, check out:
MindShift - The Ultimate Success Course
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To Steve Hardison
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Don’t cure me. Sickness is my me.
My terror was you’d set me free.
Frederick Seidel
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Acknowledgments
To Steve Hardison for the ultimate experience in coaching.
To Kathy Chandler for editing and guidance all along the way.
To Byron Katie for the school and the work and the great
undoing.
To Maurice Bassett and Julie Blake for their tireless
contributions to the MindShift project.
To Angela Hardison for the art and beauty.
To Sam Beckford and the members of the Creator’s Landing
event.
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People say we got it made,
don't they know we're so afraid?
John Lennon
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1.
They say never push a coward
They say never push a coward.
They say if you push a coward far enough, he will snap
like no other. Like no brave man will snap. Push a brave man,
and the brave man will push back. He won’t allow himself to be
pushed.
Push a coward and he won’t push back. Push him more,
and he’ll still take it. But push him too far….well, then you
have to watch out.
Because a coward will come back out the other side. He
won’t just be a brave guy, he’ll be insane. You’ll be introduced
to a wild animal.
I’m a coward myself.
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2.
Searching for the courage code
My work as a coach and trainer gives me opportunities to study
courage and cowardice at close range. Success begins with
desire. People all desire success but they don’t always know
how to achieve it.
When I work with you on the subject of success, I begin
with the question: “What would you like to create?” And once
you can identify that for me, my second question is “What’s in
the way of that right now?”
As if I didn’t know.
Because it’s always the same thing. Even though I’ve
had it described to me a thousand different ways. It’s the same
thing. It’s not money or circumstance or time. It’s fear. Fear is
all that’s in your way.
“I’m afraid if I did my dream, I would lose my security.
I’m afraid my family wouldn’t understand it if I did this. I’m
afraid I don’t know how to do it. I’m afraid I won’t have time.”
Those were my words, too! Most of my life I wrestled
with these same fears. My own cowardice stopped me. I’ve
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written about this before. Courage has been my obsession
because of my lack of it. Even as a little boy I remember that I
always longed to be Mighty Mouse, then popular on TV
cartoons and in comic books. It was becoming clear to me when
I was young that I had no super powers myself. There was
sadness and pain and large doses of fear around such threats as
wild animals and bullies. So watching heroes like Mighty
Mouse and, later, Superman, lit my little boy's heart right up.
Things would go wrong and people would be in danger
and just when you thought things couldn't get worse, Mighty
Mouse would fly in singing, “Here I come to save the day!”
Even today, when I see a picture of Mighty Mouse, I feel a little
shiver of good feelings.
Later, as I collected comic books, I also became a fan of
Atomic Mouse. Atomic Mouse had no superpowers until he
took his U235 pill! I always wondered if my later addictions
could be traced back to Atomic Mouse . . . one pill and he was
invincible!
It could be that my whole life has been a search for
superpowers. So I could fly. And if a bully ever struck I would
feel nothing. Most of my life I felt like someone searching the
world for a secret . . . a secret code to break so that courage
would be available.
I remember once—many years ago—bragging to friends
in a bar in New York that I was going to write a book called
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The Courage Prayer. But I didn’t believe it for a minute. Not
down deep. Fear was in my way.
I had gotten the idea for that title while I was going
through recovery from addiction. While going to meetings, I
was frustrated by this prayer we all recited called The Serenity
Prayer. Serenity? Who needed serenity? I thought, this isn’t a
nursing home, this is re-entry into life. The prayer said, “God,
grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the
courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the
difference.”
I always secretly called that prayer “The Courage
Prayer.” What I wanted from that prayer was the courage. The
courage to change the things I could. How would that be?
Forget serenity. At least for now. That could come later when
I was enjoying the benefits of elderly living.
Courage is all any of my clients have ever wanted, too.
Though they call it a million different things. Courage is
always what is missing. (For example, even the solution to the
time management problem is the introduction of boldness.) In
all quests for success, what people really want to be is fearless.
So I’ll tell you how I get them there.
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Life shrinks or expands
in proportion to one’s courage.
Anais Nin
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3.
Death is like the rose
I was sitting in Byron Katie's nine-day school and we were
about to go on a field trip to conduct some very brave
experiments. Many of us, including me, were scared. As we
were about to board the buses Katie said to all 300 of us,
"Remember, the worst thing that could happen to you is a
thought."
I burst out laughing! It wasn't the first time I laughed or
cried in that school. But the laughs were always joyful and the
crying was sweet and grateful. Like crying at a wedding.
Finally experiencing the marriage of mind and spirit.
Of life and death.
I'd been listening to Katie for a few years prior to the
school on audio recordings played in my car as I drove around
or in my headphones as I drifted off to sleep at night. She said
one night, as I was falling into a dream state, that if she were to
throw me out of an airplane without a parachute the worst thing
that could happen to me all the way down was a thought. I slept
well that night.
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Our fear of death is staggering. Sometimes I think if we
could simply erase that fear, everything would be okay.
Death even causes us to fear how our bodies change as
they get older. We judge the body’s changes to be a bad thing.
Yet the rose I bought you fades and dies beautifully. You save
it, even. You thumbtack it above our bed. It is dry now, and
even what some might call dead. But it looks so beautiful and
natural.
All form changes. All pain comes from fear of that.
Fearless is the rose that fades and dries and falls from the wall,
beautiful all the way down.
Some say that all fear is fear of death. But why do we
fear death? Do we fear sleep? Deep, peaceful dreamless sleep?
Where does the world go when I disappear into dreamless
sleep? Why am I not anxious about going to sleep and losing
everything there? After all, a day is ending . . . a day that is
always my life in microcosm. Asleep now, I am happily “dead
to the world,” and feeling no hint of trouble as I lie fearless
beneath the faded red rose pinned above the head of the bed.
You have done a good thing by putting the rose up to die
so beautifully right before our eyes.
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If you realize that all things
change, there is nothing you will
try to hold on to.
If you aren't afraid of dying,
there is nothing you can't achieve.
Lao Tzu
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4.
Our life will never end
To understand the elimination of fear from my life, I must
appreciate the role of thought. Because every feeling—
especially fear—begins with a thought. And every thought
causes a feeling. Nothing else can cause a feeling. Let me give
you a very gentle example to begin with. Then we’ll crank it up
later.
In most of the world, and in Michigan where I grew up,
rain was a metaphor for sadness and pain. Our whole society
seemed to regard it this way. Into every life a little rain must
fall. George and Martha have a "stormy" relationship. Rain is
sorrow.
But sunshine! Sunshine is good … rain bad, sun good …
you are the sunshine of my life. Things going badly? Don't
worry. Here comes the sun! And it’s all right.
The secret to bad and good and love and fear is reflected
in our views of rain. How we interpret the rain. In Arizona, for
example, we don’t think the rain is so bad because weather
itself is not a concept that we are overly familiar with. When
clouds appear, we start feeling romantic. When we watch a
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movie mystery set in rainy, foggy London town, we wish we
were there.
Driving to Tucson recently the romance of the rain did
not let us down. The winds blew across the desert, and as we
looked out toward the Catalina Mountains black clouds
crackled with thunder and lightning. Rain fell. We smiled and
walked slowly from our car to go meet our friends Fred and
Lynette.
Fred is Fred Knipe—someone I met in Tucson at college
in 1964. Later the two of us wrote songs together for a living
for a number of years. Three of our songs had the word "rain"
in the title. ("Rain on Me," "Rain Forest" and "Melinda Rain.")
In each of those songs, the element of rain was a positive
romantic element. Most songwriters write songs wherein the
rain is a negative thing: "Stormy Weather," "Baby, The Rain
Must Fall" and "I Made It Through the Rain" are examples.
But it’s all perception. Every feeling in life is! Perceive
something one way and you are terrified. Perceive it another
way, and you are happy. You yourself get to write the
perception. Always in life, you get to compose the song.
Consider the eerie power of Jim Morrison singing
"Riders on the Storm." (“The world on you depends / Our life
will never end.”) You hear rain behind the opening cascading
keyboards as Morrison sings of the storm and how it brings out
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the dark side of humanity, a killer on the road; his brain is
“squirming like a toad.”
But without his interpretation, the rain means nothing.
I actually saw a little toad come out of the desert last
night. I wasn’t thinking like Morrison at the time, so I decided
it was good. The toad hopped across my path and enjoyed
moving along the rain-slick patio tiles at the resort. He had
suction-cups for feet. I smiled at the sight of him. Rain is a
thought that is welcome here. All sad things can be beautiful
when the mind is right. Fear is washed away in the blink of an
eye. In the turning of a thought, fear is washed away.
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5.
Life’s most troubling comic material
I saw Robin Williams on Inside the Actor's Studio once and he
stood up and asked the audience to throw an object—any
object, anything—up to the stage.
Someone threw him a towel.
He wrapped it around his head and took on a foreign
accent and said some hilarious things—then he put it around his
waist and acted like a delicate man at a steam bath—people
roared, although the towel was just any object—a neutral,
meaningless thing until he used it. Re-interpreted it. Just as we
do with all the troubling comic material of our private lives.
My coach uses my problem the same way. To him it is
“material.” He creates with it. He twists it around into
different shapes. By the time we are finished, we are both glad
the problem is here because we have taken so much from it.
My coach (yes, he's a real person, www.theultimatecoach.net)
Steve Hardison says, "This ‘problem’ is going to be a great
seminar for you. You couldn't have invented a better seminar
for you to take right now."
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Solutions are one of the great joys of the fearless life.
And all solutions have problems. You can’t have a solution
without a problem, and a life without solutions is flat and
boring. Some coaches and mentors know how to use problems
to create solutions so elegant that it would make Einstein
jealous.
That's the fascinating thing about problems. When taken
on, they are life-changing gifts. Once we can do the mind shift
(from paranoid mode to creative mode) necessary to see them
for what they are, all problems become advanced seminars in
What I Now Need to Learn to Advance on this Spiritual
Journey Up the Ladder of Consciousness to Some Real Fun and
Good Mischief and a condition we’ve all heard described as
fearless.
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6.
Your kids have turned out great!
My seminar attendee in Boulder was named Tracy. She was in
the process of outlining her financial desires and describing a
good business plan when she blurted out, "But most of the men
in here won't understand this, because I am a single mom and I
have a child to raise. I do have a son."
Some men, because they have imaginations, can
understand her. Compassion does not come from having
experienced someone's identical life experience. Compassion
comes from imagination.
I myself understood that woman's fear, both because I
could imagine it—and also because I was a single father myself
raising four young children on my own. I had full custody of
those kids while also having my own business to run, and so I
do have compassion for what single mothers experience. I was
one! In fact, now that I think of it my children back then would
even sometimes refer to me as a "mother."
What a gift to me that time was. What a joy to have that
experience, no matter how wild it was. My children and I used
to watch the movie Meatballs to absorb the central message that
"It just doesn't matter." Whatever our situation was at home, it
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didn't matter. Not even a little bit. Everything “negative” was
illusory, and everything good felt real. There was enough love,
music and humor to cover for us. We covered the spread. We
knew we had nothing to fear from the rich kids in the camp
across the lake.
Was I a good father? No one will ever know. Was I
fearful about how my children would "turn out"? No. Not at
all. They were not muffins. They were not in an oven. They
were free spirits. There would be no "turning out" one way or
the other because they were never going to get that final
evaluation.
Most parents are always checking in the oven to see if the
kids are turning out okay.
"I hope he turns out okay."
What is okay? What exactly do you want from him?
Where does this fear come from? Will you be graded on how
he turns out? That’s really it, isn’t it? It’s a concern about you,
isn’t it?
My daughter Margie told me a story recently I hadn’t
remembered. She was in grade school, and it was her birthday.
Her favorite color was always purple. And as she came outside
for recess that one birthday day she saw me sitting on a swing
in the playground with a large bouquet of purple flowers in my
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arms. I had no fear about how she would turn out. I just wanted
to celebrate how perfect she already always was.
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About Steve Chandler
Steve Chandler is one of America’s best-selling authors. His
20 books have been translated into 15 languages throughout
Europe, China, Japan, the Middle East and Latin America.
Chandler is also a world-famous public speaker who was
called by Fred Knipe, a four-time Emmy-award winning PBS
screenwriter, “an insane combination of Anthony Robbins and
Jerry Seinfeld.” He recently starred in an episode of NBC’s
Starting Over, the Emmy-award winning reality show about life
coaching.
Chandler is a co-founder of the world mastermind
network Club Fearless, and was recently a guest lecturer at the
University of Santa Monica, where he taught in the graduate
program of Soul-centered Leadership.
Chandler has been a trainer and consultant to more than
30 Fortune 500 companies worldwide. He graduated from the
University of Arizona with a degree in Creative Writing and
Political Science, and spent four years in the U.S. Army in
Language and Psychological Warfare. His internationally
popular blog is available for all to read at www.imindshift.com.
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